UREÑA, Venezuela – A high-risk opposition campaign to deliver humanitarian aid into Venezuela descended into deadly chaos Saturday after President Nicolas Maduro’s security forces…
UREÑA, Venezuela – A high-risk opposition campaign to deliver humanitarian aid into Venezuela descended into deadly chaos Saturday after President Nicolas Maduro’s security forces fired on demonstrators and aid trucks were set ablaze as his blockade held firm.
Two people, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in clashes with security forces on the Brazil-Venezuela border amid efforts to bring in aid there, a human rights group said.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido had set a Saturday deadline for the delivery of food and medical aid stockpiled in Colombia and Brazil.
Aid is also being held on the Caribbean island of Curacao because of Maduro’s ban. A boat from the US territory of Puerto Rico was also en route to Venezuela with humanitarian aid, Governor Ricardo Rossello said, without indicating its destination fort.
But hundreds of volunteers, many clad in white, were frustrated in their attempts to collect the aid at the Colombian border, pinned back by Maduro’s security forces.
Since dawn, protesters in the border towns of Urena and San Antonio were held at bay by the Venezuelan National Guard firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
Gunshots could be heard in the streets of Urena during hours of rioting. Civil defense officials in Colombia said at least 42 people had been injured in clashes on the main Simon Bolivar bridge crossing. Most were Venezuelan nationals who were trying to cross with aid parcels when they were pushed back by Venezuelan forces.
But the most serious incident came hundreds of miles away, at the Santa Elena de Uairen crossing point on the southern border with Brazil.
Two people were killed and 31 wounded when troops blocking the entry of aid opened fire on civilians hoping to gather it, according to rights group Foro Penal.
