About 100 government supporters were reported to have burst into Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly, where they beat up several lawmakers.
Eye witness accounts said that the confrontation came after an assembly session to mark the country’s Independence Day.
It was learnt that no fewer than 350 people were besieged for hours, including journalists, students and visitors.
The assembly’s speaker, Mr Julio Borges named five of the lawmakers injured, some of who were taken away for medical treatment, including Deputy Speaker, Américo De Grazia. He was carried out on a stretcher.
Deputy Armando Armas told reporters as he got into an ambulance: “this does not hurt as much as seeing every day how we are losing our country.” His head swathed in bloody bandages.
Military police guarding the site were said to have stood by as intruders brandishing sticks and pipes broke through the gate.
Meanwhile, the government has vowed to investigate.
Reacting to the incidence, President Nicolas Maduro said: “I will not be complicit in acts of violence.”
Venezuela has been shaken by often violent protests in recent months and is in economic crisis.
The US state department has condemned the violence, calling it “an assault on the democratic principles cherished by the men and women who struggled for Venezuela’s independence 206 years ago today.”
AFP, whose journalists were at the scene, said reporters were ordered to leave by the attackers, one of whom had a gun.
Before the intruders rushed the building, Vice-President Tareck El Aissami made an impromptu appearance in the Congress with the head of the armed forces, Vladimir Padrino López, and ministers.
