AlQa'dah 09, 1436, August 24, 2015, SPA -- Venezuelan security forces have deported hundreds of Colombians as part of a security offensive along the border that is ratcheting up tensions between the two neighbors, according to AP. Gov. Jose Gregorio Vielma Mora of Tachira state said Monday that 1,012 Colombians living in Venezuela illegally had been handed over to Colombian authorities as a result of a now five-day crackdown against smugglers and criminal gangs operating along the border. President Nicolas Maduro last week closed a major crossing between the two countries and declared a state of emergency in several western cities after three army officers were shot and wounded by gunmen he said belonged to paramilitary gangs operating from Colombia. As part of the state of emergency, Maduro deployed some 1,500 extra troops to the border to search house by house for smugglers who thrive on purchasing goods in Venezuela at low prices and reselling them across the border for huge profits. The number deported in recent days is now more than half the 1,772 people expelled last year from Venezuela, according to Colombian statistics, and has overwhelmed a government-built shelter in the border city of Cucuta designed to provide assistance to returning nationals. Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin, a former ambassador to Venezuela, traveled to the border Monday to oversee humanitarian efforts amid reports from deportees that families had been broken up and their homes bulldozed as part of the dragnet.
