AUGUST 15, 2017 3:31 PM
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
A handful of Venezuelan soldiers — armed and in uniform — were caught in neighboring Guyana last week begging for food, local police reported, another sign of Venezuela’s deepening hunger crisis.
Guyanese Police Inspector Christopher Humphrey said he’d gone to the border along the Amacuro river, which divides the two nations, to investigate reports that the Venezuelan military was stealing food from locals. But the three soldiers he encountered — two carrying military assault rifles — said they had come to beg for meals and hadn’t harmed anyone.
Humphrey said the men had crossed into Guyana on a wooden raft and seemed genuinely hungry.
“They were desperate,” he told the Miami Herald. “They were here for some time and they showed me a can of sardines and the place where they had cooked it over a fire.”
Hunger is on the rise in Venezuela, amid triple-digit inflation and the government’s inability to import basic goods. And neighboring Colombia, Brazil and Guyana have seen a spike in Venezuelans looking for food.
But Humphrey, who has worked in the border region for a year, said this is the first time he had caught soldiers illegally crossing.
Venezuela’s armed forces — which are key to propping up the Nicolás Maduro administration — have always been perceived to have easier access to basic goods. Lately, though, there have been growing but uncorroborated reports of soldiers going hungry, particularly at far-flung border outposts.
Venezuela’s military is under intense scrutiny for signs that its support for Maduro might be eroding. In July, a rogue police inspector lobbed grenades onto the Supreme Court from a helicopter, which did not result in injuries.
And on Aug. 6, former National Guard Capt. Juan Caguaripano announced he was launching a military revolt named “Operation David” to “rescue the country from total destruction.” A week later, authorities said they had detained him and other “ringleaders.”
That soldiers would cross into Guyana is telling. The two nations have been locked in a centuries-old border dispute over a swath of Guyanese territory known as the Esequibo and are not on good terms. In 2015, as tensions escalated, Venezuela sent troops and antiaircraft missiles to the border.
Humphrey said he thinks the men learned that they can’t count on crossing the border for food.
“But that doesn’t mean some other set [of soldiers] won’t come back,” he said.
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Clarification: The original article has been modified to omit information pulled from second-hand sources.
Venezuelan Bolivarian Militia members shout slogans agains the Unites States during an anti-imperialist march to denounce Trump's talk of a "military option" for resolving the country's political crisis, in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Ariana Cubillos AP
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