VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro led thousands of supporters in a protest on Saturday against the renewal of US sanctions.

“Unlike the US, we have never killed innocent children nor bombed hospitals,” he said at the rally in the capital Caracas, vowing to fight imperialist intervention.

“I swore that I would never surrender to the oligarchy, under no circumstances,” Mr Maduro told crowd of red-shirted demonstrators. “Let them come for me. Nobody’s giving up here.”

On March 3, US President Barack Obama renewed his 2015 decree dubbing Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US.”

The order subjected top security officials to sanctions over alleged human rights abuses during a year-long campaign of violence by the opposition aimed at overthrowing Mr Maduro’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) government.

Party members collected millions of signatures on a petition opposing the decree.

Popular Will (VP) party leader Leopoldo Lopez was sentenced to nearly 14 years in jail last year for his role in inciting the violence that killed 43 people, including PSUV MP Robert Serra and his girlfriend in their Caracas flat.

The opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition organised a counter-demonstration in the wealthy Chacao district of the capital on Saturday, demanding the release of Mr Lopez and other “political prisoners,” along with Mr Maduro’s resignation.

The opposition unveiled its three-pronged regime change strategy last week, starting with a Bill in the MUD-dominated National Assembly to force a presidential recall referendum.