At least two people were killed and trucks loaded with foreign aid were set ablaze after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro deployed troops and armored vehicles to turn back humanitarian assistance at border crossings with Colombia and Brazil.
CUCUTA, Colombia/URENA, Venezuela (Reuters) – At least two people were killed and trucks loaded with foreign aid were set ablaze after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro deployed troops and armored vehicles to turn back humanitarian assistance at border crossings with Colombia and Brazil.
Maduro said he was breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia and ordered its diplomatic staff to leave Venezuela within 24 hours because of its government’s assistance to opposition leader Juan Guaido.
Guaido, who most Western nations recognize as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, gave a personal send-off on Saturday to a convoy carrying U. S. aid departing from the Colombian city of Cucuta. The opposition says the foreign humanitarian assistance is desperately needed to tackle widespread food and medicine shortages in Venezuela.
But Maduro denies his oil-rich nation has any need of aid and accuses Guaido of being a coup-mongering puppet for U. S. President Donald Trump.
Washington warned on Friday that it could impose tough new sanctions on Venezuela if Maduro blocked the aid shipments.
“What do the Venezuelan people think of Donald Trump’s threats? Get your hands off Venezuela Donald Trump. Yankee go home,” Maduro told a rally of red-shirted, flag-waving supporters in the capital, Caracas. “He is sending us rotten food, thank you!”
In the Venezuelan border towns of San Antonio and Urena, troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets at opposition supporters, including lawmakers, walking toward the frontier waving Venezuelan flags and chanting “freedom.”
People in Urena barricaded streets with burning tires, set a bus alight and hurled stones at troops to demand that Maduro allow aid into a country ravaged by an economic meltdown that has halved the size of the economy in five years.
