This post has been updated.
Venezuelan soldiers clashed with protesters throughout the weekend over humanitarian aid deliveries. At least two people were killed and hundreds were injured in the last few days.
“My fear has always been that Venezuela is a country that’s one bullet away from war,” Real Vision Senior Reporter Brian Price told Yahoo Finance’s On the Move on Friday. “And I think that bullet was fired this morning.”
The tensions along the border came as billionaire Sir Richard Branson planned a concert in Colombia to provide support for Venezuelans. The Maduro regime responded with a concert of its own and appeals for aid from its ally Russia.
“There’s such a duality going on,” Price said. “We have this inspiring moment happening with the concert being put on by Sir Richard Branson just over the border in Colombia. And it’s this wonderful, awe inspiring chapter in Venezuelan history. And on the other hand you have a civilian being killed this morning at the hand of the Venezuelan military.”
Aid crosses the border
Aid was prevented from crossing the border from Colombia into Venezuela, though some trucks carrying humanitarian assistance were able to enter the country from Brazil. Maduro severed diplomatic ties with Colombia after clashes broke out along the border.
“On the one hand, the Maduro government reiterated that it will not accept humanitarian aid to the point that it ordered repression against protesters, a move that left its government very badly off,” Carlos Romero, an analyst at Central University of Venezuela, told Bloomberg. “On the other hand, the opposition represented by Guaido did not manage to introduce humanitarian aid, nor did it achieve a weighty military pronouncement repudiating the Maduro government.”
Opposition leader and partially recognized Interim President Juan Guaido tweeted: “Today’s events force me to make a decision: to formally propose to the international community that we must have all options open to secure the freedom of our country.”
Speaking to CNN, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he believed Maduro wouldn’t be in office long.
“Picking exact days is difficult,” he said. “I'm confident that the Venezuelan people will ensure that Maduro's days are numbered.” (In 2012, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s "days are numbered.”)
Asked about what could be next, Price said that “when we talk about how the situation could get ratcheted up and when we talk about what war looks like: Will the U.S. at one point have to become an occupying power within Venezuela?”
He added: “This is a crisis that needs to be solved one meal at a time. We need to just think about it in terms of: how do you get one more person eating every day? How do we get people back so their health can be regained?”
READ MORE:
'All of these pieces are lining up for something terrible' in Venezuela
'Think of it as an ice cube': How Venezuela became a disaster state
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