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Bacchus4.0

(6,837 posts)
Tue Jul 12, 2016, 09:54 AM Jul 2016

Thousands of Venezuelans pour into Colombia to buy food

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/thousands-venezuelans-pour-colombia-buy-food-160711033954843.html

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have poured across into neighbouring Colombia to buy basic goods amid shortages at home, during a brief opening of the border that has been closed for almost a year.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro closed the border in August 2015, citing smuggling and penetration by Colombian fighters. On Sunday, he authorised a 12-hour opening of the pedestrian bridge that connects Tachira, in Venezuela, and Cucuta, in Colombia, for the first time in 11 months.

Victor Bautista, the director of the Colombian border authority, said that an estimated 35,000 Venezuelans had arrived in Cucuta.

Some 25,000 people surged in within the first seven hours, William Villamizar, governor of the Norte de Santander department that includes Cucuta, said on Twitter.
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