"Venezuelans storm Colombia border..."

The Guardian:  Five hundred hungry Venezuelan women have stormed across a bridge into Colombia, defying a year-long border closure in search of basic foodstuff and goods which are hard to find back home.

Dressed in white T-shirts, the women from the Venezuelan town of Ureña marched up to the barriers manned by members of the National Guard. The guardsmen formed a cordon to prevent the women from passing but they eventually broke through, cheering as they ran across the bridge into the Colombian city of Cúcuta.

“The women of Ureña decided to come to the international bridge to cross the border because we don’t have food in our homes, our children are going hungry, there is a lot of need,” one woman told the Cúcuta daily La Opinion.

The women poured into the markets and shops of the Colombian city, snatching up toilet paper, flour, cooking oil, corn flour and other goods hard to find back home.

Because of the exchange rate between the Venezuelan bolivar and Colombian peso, and the lack of subsidies in Colombia, the women who forced their way across the border on Tuesday may have paid 10 times the price for the goods they bought compared to the official prices at home.

But their complaint was that the goods cannot be found in Venezuela. (link for more)