Venezuela soldiers kill two in clash over food on Brazil border: NGO
Venezuelan soldiers shot dead two indigenous people Friday and wounded 15 other who tried to stop them sealing an unofficial crossing on the Brazilian border, rights campaigners said.
"An indigenous woman and her husband were killed and at least 15 other members of the Pemon indigenous community were injured," said human rights group Kape Kape.
The clash occurred in southeastern Bolivar state close to the border with Brazil, which President Nicolas Maduro ordered closed on Thursday.
Two Venezuelan ambulances did cross the border on Friday, carrying five people with gunshot wounds to a hospital in Roraima state in northern Brazil.
Salomon Perez, who crossed into Brazil with the ambulances alongside a wounded brother and two nieces, said he had been talking to a general asking for the border to be reopened when soldiers opened fire.
"It wasn't a clash, it was an attack," said Perez, a member of the Pemon community, speaking from Roraima.
"People were in their community, calm. The soldiers came and started shooting at the indigenous people."
Opposition leader Juan Guaido, whose challenge to Maduro and bid to bring in humanitarian aid led to the socialist leader closing the border, called on the military to arrest those responsible for the killings "or you will be responsible."
Indigenous leaders held four soldiers and impounded a jeep-type vehicle that was part of the military convoy, according to a police report seen by AFP.
Venezuela's Pemon community use unofficial border pathways to cross into Brazil to buy food.
"We crossed the border from Venezuela to Brazil via other paths because the national guards closed the border," said Genesis Valencia, a 26-year-old Pemon woman.
"That's why we had to come through other paths. We came to buy things here in Brazil because there's nothing in Venezuela... no food, no medicine... people, kids, are dying of hunger."
Humanitarian aid has become a key focus of the tense standoff between Maduro and Guaido -- recognized as interim leader by more than 50 countries.
Maduro says the aid is a show and ruse to preempt a US invasion. On Thursday he ordered the border with Brazil "completely and absolutely" closed until further notice.