Venezuela soldiers kill two as tensions over aid entry rises

Venezuelan soldiers opened fire on indigenous people near the border with Brazil on Friday, killing two, as President Nicolas Maduro sought to block US-backed efforts to bring aid into his economically devastated nation.

The United States, which is among dozens of nations to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president, has been stockpiling aid in the Colombian frontier town of Cucuta to ship across the border this weekend.

With tensions running high after Guaido invoked the constitution to declare an interim presidency last month, Maduro has denied there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela despite widespread shortages of food and medicine and hyperinflation.

He says the opposition efforts are a US-backed “cheap show”.

Guaidó, the head of the Venezuelan National Assembly, who is recently recognized by the U.S. and some 30 other nations as the country’s rightful head of state, condemned Maduro and the troops that remain loyal to him in a Friday tweet.

“The result of this crime: 12 injured and one dead,” Guaidó wrote. “You must decide which side you are on in this definitive hour. To all the military: between today and tomorrow, you will define how you want to be remembered.”

Guaidó, in his words of warning, referenced the caravan of volunteers who have vowed to escort vehicles carrying humanitarian aid across the border from Colombia on Saturday.

The socialist president, who took power in 2013 and was re-elected in an election last year, has declared Venezuela’s southern border with Brazil closed ahead of the opposition’s plan to bring in the aid on Saturday

Late on Friday, the government shuttered the Tachira frontier that connects with Cucuta.

With inflation running at more than 2 million percent a year and currency controls restricting imports of basic goods, a growing share of the country’s roughly 30 million people is suffering from malnutrition.

Friday’s violence broke out in the village of Kumarakapay in southern Venezuela after an indigenous community stopped a military convoy heading toward the border with Brazil that they believed was attempting to block aid, according to community leaders Richard Fernandez and Ricardo Delgado.