VENEZUELA condemned its neighbour Colombia on Sunday night for sending tanks to the border in a “provocation” amid increasing unrest in both countries.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry released a statement slamming the deployment of armoured vehicles “scant metres from the frontier” in Paraguachon, Guajira department, on the Caribbean coast.

The statement pointed out that in recent days Colombian authorities had “broadcast to the world that they were preparing for waves of migrants from Venezuela to Colombia” fleeing violence in Venezuela.

Caracas said: “The provocation aims to divert attention from the political and social crisis” in the Colombian port of Buenaventura, where a civic strike entered its seventh day yesterday despite troops being deployed on the streets.

Residents are demanding improvements to infrastructure and drinking water supply for the sake of their health.

The Cauca Valley Patriotic Union yesterday sent a message of solidarity to Venezuela “in its valourous resistance against the economic and terrorist war unleashed by that country’s extreme right opposition.”

And Colombia faces more unrest in the coming week. The Central Union of Workers (CUT) union federation has called on public employees to strike and join protests today alongside political, social and peasants’ organisations. It follows last Tuesday’s 500,000-strong strike calling for wage rises to compensate for inflation and “regressive tax reforms.”

Tomorrow groups affiliated under the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia will march from neighbouring department capital Popayan to Cali in the Cauca Valley.

And national marches in support of the peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) are planned for June 1.

Nearly two months of regime-change riots across Venezuela have now left 53 people dead, according to news channel Telesur. Only six of those are confirmed to have been killed by the security forces, while two officers have been killed.

The Public Ministry has ordered a probe into the latest deadly shooting of 23-year-old Edy Alejandro Teran at a protest in Tachira state on Saturday night that also left an 18-year-old boy and a woman injured.

A leaflet from the “Venezuela Resistance and Student Movement” circulated on social media called for an indefinite national general strike starting yesterday. The authors blamed the government for the economic crisis — and warned businesses, bus and taxi drivers that they could face looting and arson if they continued doing business.