Venezuelan Women Get Across Border In Search of Food

Hungry is deadly. An hungry man is an angry man, imagine About 5 hundred Venezuelan women in search of food have broken through border controls separating the western state of Tachira from neighbouring Colombia.

About 500 Venezuelan women in search of food have broken through border controls separating the western state of Tachira from neighbouring Colombia. The women said their families were going hungry because of severe food shortages in Venezuela.

The 500 women kept saying in several reports that their families were going hungry because of severe food shortages in Venezuela. Several hours later, they crossed back into Venezuela carrying basic goods and singing the Venezuelan anthem.

The women said they had organized to meet at the border via the instant messaging service WhatsApp. Hundreds of them pushed past the Venezuelan National Guard and walked across the border, which has been closed for almost a year.

The women, dressed mostly in white and coming from towns in western Tachira state, managed to break through a military cordon, across a bridge and into the northeastern Colombian city of Cucuta. One of the women told local media she had bought rice, sugar, flour, toilet paper and oil, all of which are hard to come by in Venezuela. Hours later, they crossed back into Venezuela carrying basic goods and singing the Venezuelan anthem.

Venezuela grows and produces very little except oil and has historically relied on imports to feed its people but oil prices have plummeted leaving the government with a shortfall of income. Venezuela is going through an economic crisis and many Venezuelans say they struggle to feed their families

.Shortages of basic food and medicine in Venezuela have reached 80 percent, according to private organisations, but the situation in the border area is exacerbated by the closure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered in August 2015.

The president made the decision after an attack by a Colombian paramilitary group against a military patrol that wounded three people in San Antonio del Tachira.

Some 70 percent of Venezuelan small shops have closed, causing the loss of 15,000 jobs, according to the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce, or Fedecamaras.

SOURCE: BBC News