Two die as aid convoys face fierce resistance on Venezuela border

CARACAS, Feb 24 (Agencies): Violent clashes broke out in Venezuelan border towns on Saturday that left at least two people dead, as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blocked humanitarian convoys from entering the country.

Troops loyal to Maduro fired tear gas and rounds of rubber bullets at protesters who tried to bring boxes of US-supplied aid across the border, leaving some 300 injured.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who is supported by Washington, backed the efforts to import the aid, saying hundreds of thousands of people are in urgent need of food and medicine. Maduro sees the aid as part of a US plot to remove him from power.

Throughout the turbulent day, as police and protesters squared off on two bridges connecting Venezuela to Colombia, opposition leader Juan Guaido made repeated calls for the military to join him in the fight against Maduro's "dictatorship." Colombian authorities said more than 60 soldiers answered his call, deserting their posts in often-gripping fashion, though most were lower in rank and didn't appear to dent the higher command's continued loyalty to Maduro's socialist government.

In one dramatic high point, a group of activists led by exiled lawmakers managed to escort three flatbed trucks of aid past the halfway point into Venezuela when they were repelled by security forces.

In a flash the cargo caught fire, with some eyewitnesses claiming the National Guardsmen doused a tarp covering the boxes with gas before setting it on fire.

As a black cloud rose above, the activists - protecting their faces from the fumes with vinegar-soaked cloths - unloaded the boxes by hand in a human chain stretching back to the Colombian side of the bridge.

"They burned the aid and fired on their own people," said 39-year-old David Hernandez, who was hit in the forehead with a tear gas canister that left a bloody wound and growing welt. "That's the definition of dictatorship."

For weeks, US President Donald Trump's administration and its regional allies have been amassing emergency food and medical supplies on three of Venezuela's borders with the aim of launching a "humanitarian avalanche." It comes exactly one month after Guaido, in a direct challenge to Maduro's rule, declared himself interim president at an outdoor rally.

Even as the 35-year-old lawmaker has won the backing of more than 50 governments around the world, he's so far been unable to cause a major rift inside the military - Maduro's last-remaining plank of support in a country ravaged by hyperinflation and widespread shortages.

Amid the standoff, Guaido was turning to diplomatic actions.

As night fell, he refrained from asking supporters to continue risking their lives and make another attempt to break the government's barricades. Instead, he said he would meet US Vice President Mike Pence on Monday in Colombia's capital at an emergency meeting of mostly conservative Latin American governments to discuss Venezuela's crisis.

But he did make one last appeal to troops.