Venezuela extends closure of key border with Colombia

“The constitution and the law give me the power to declare this state of exception for 60 days, extendable for 60 days”, Maduro said, using a term that refers to a suspension of some constitutional rights.

Authorities said two assailants on a motorcycle fired on a patrol that was on a counter-smuggling mission in the town of San Antonio del Tachira, wounding three soldiers and a civilian.

Maduro on Friday ordered a closure of the area until Sunday following an attack in which four people were wounded.

Venezuela closed the border crossings Wednesday night and subsequently extended the shutdown indefinitely.

One of the busiest border crossings is closed, with the state of emergency extending across five municipalities.

This is not the first time Bogota shut the border between two countries down. “We have been discovering a frightful actuality about how the criminals and paramilitaries function”.

“Those who are not in Venezuela legally must return to Colombia”, it warned.

But the border stretch will not reopen, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro said, “until the attack on Venezuela’s economy from inside Colombia stops”. “We don’t know”, Santos said at a cabinet meeting.

He said he would speak with the Venezuelan leader in the coming days and that foreign ministers from both countries would meet this week in hopes of quickly reopening the border. In a statement, the Democratic Unity Alliance called on the global community to take note of what it considers a clear provocation likely to generate economic losses and put at risk voting in December legislative elections.

Last year, Venezuela deployed several hundred troops and shut the border down in an anti-smuggling operation. It also has rolled a fingerprint-scanning system to restrict the amount of any single product shoppers can buy.

The Venezuelan government say the authorities have arrested more than 6,000 people for smuggling over the past year.