With number on wrist, Venezuelans queue at markets

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela, Mar 8 (AFP) : Patricia Gamboa arrived at a government-run supermarket in western Venezuela at 2 am, six hours before doors opened, to be first in line and buy whatever she could get her hands on.

As dawn broke, about 200 people stood behind her outside the Bicentenario shop in San Cristobal, with numbers written on their wrists with green markers to avoid arguments over who came first.

One end of the street was blocked by one of the many barricades that demonstrators have built with trees across the city to protest, among other things, the basic food shortage plaguing their oil-rich country.

The empty store shelves are among the major grievances fueling a wave of protests that have spread to other cities and dogged President Nicolas Maduro for the past month.