PARAGUACHON, Colombia—Venezuela’s sudden decision to close another major border crossing with Colombia has left workers, vacationers, and members of a nomadic indigenous community stranded, and further escalated tensions between the neighboring countries.
President Nicolás Maduro ordered the main crossing in Venezuela’s biggest state closed Monday night as part of a two-week-old anti-smuggling offensive.
The offensive has shelters and human rights groups in Colombia struggling to absorb thousands of migrants who have fled their Venezuelan homes.
The crackdown had targeted Táchira State across the border from Cúcuta, a Boston-size city in Colombia that has long relied on smuggled gas, food, and other goods purchased in Venezuela at bargain-basement subsidized prices.
In moving his focus north to Zulia State, Maduro is encroaching on a more vital economic hub around the oil metropolis of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city. His administration took out an advertisement in the New York Times on Wednesday, saying that Venezuela needed to take steps to combat smugglers who would do the country harm, but was committed to respecting human rights and supporting peace.
But Colombia took the newest closure as an affront, with President Juan Manuel Santos saying Wednesday that he had opened channels of communication and Venezuela had responded by shutting even more of the border.
