Venezuelans to receive aid next week

Venezuelan National Assembly Leader Juan Guaidó promised at a rally Tuesday in Caracas that more humanitarian aid will arrive Feb. 23 and urged the military to allow entry. Guaidó said he will mobilize caravans of supporters to transport food and medicine into the country from the bordering Colombian city of Cúcuta. He also said a second batch of aid will come from across the Brazilian border. The opposition leader, who is serving as interim president since invoking a clause in the Venezuelan Constitution, issued a “direct order” for the armed forces not to block the aid. “Put yourselves on the side of the constitution, but also on the side of humanity,” Guaidó added.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans crowded the streets of Caracas on Tuesday to protest President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government and demand access to aid. Some humanitarian aid had already entered the country on a “small scale” despite a military blockade at the shared border with Colombia, Guaidó said in a televised statement Monday.

Maduro’s government has rejected aid as foreign intervention. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza told UN Secretary-General António Guterres that the country has no humanitarian crisis and asked the body to push the United States to lift sanctions on its assets.