Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro ordered the vast border with Brazil to be closed on Thursday just days before opposition leaders plan to bring in foreign humanitarian aid.
Maduro made the announcement on state TV, surrounded by military commanders before opposition leaders led by Juan Guaido vowed to bring in U.S. supplies of emergency food and medicine over the socialist president’s objections.
“It will be completely closed until otherwise notified, the land border with Brazil. Better to prevent than to be sorry. So I am taking every measure of prevention to protect our people.”
Maduro said he’s also weighing whether to shut down the border with Colombia.
The move comes as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees put the number of refugees and migrants from Venezuela at over three million — a figure it says is growing by 5,000 every day.
The number of refugees + migrants from Venezuela now stands at 3.4 million people.
They need support.@ACNURamericas pic.twitter.com/VwlBNorhHI
Under Maduro’s orders, Venezuela this week blocked air and sea travel between Venezuela and the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao.
Maduro denies a humanitarian crisis, accusing the United States of leading a coup to remove him from power and using the “show” of supposed humanitarian aid as military intervention.
The socialist president is under a mounting challenge by Guaido, who has declared himself acting president on the grounds that Maduro’s re-election was invalid.
Guaido is backed by the U.S. and dozens of nations, who say Maduro was re-elected last year in fraudulent elections.
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