Wayuu artisans selling baskets in Riohacha, Colombia, a city near the border with Venezuela. Photo by Miller Sierra via Wikipedia

The government in Venezuela is cracking down on smuggling and immigration in the territory of the "feared" Wayuu Tribe, the Associated Press reports.

Tribal members don't recognize the Venezuela-Colombia border. They freely travel between both countries and engage in smuggling, which they don't view as a crime, according to the AP.

A lack of food and other items fuels smuggling. According to The Wall Street Journal, tribal members often wait in long lines for essentials like milk and rice. Some days they walk away empty handed, the paper said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he will respect the tribe's traditions even as he sent 3,000 troops to Wayuu territory. He closed border crossings and declared emergencies in three towns in the region, the AP reported.

Last month, troops conducted anti-smuggling raids in La Sibucara, a town in the border area. A reporter for the Wall Street Journal saw tribal members with bad injuries.

“They didn’t say or ask us anything,” Lisandro Uriana, a Wayuu father whose home was raided, told the Journal. “They just beat us and we couldn’t defend ourselves because they were armed and were many. I don’t even smuggle…and now I can’t even get up to work.”

More than 437,000 Wayuu people live in Venezuela and Colombia, according to Wikipedia.

Get the Story:
Venezuela expands anti-smuggling crackdown with new closure (AP 9/8)
Venezuela’s Food Shortages Trigger Long Lines, Hunger and Looting (The Wall Street Journal 8/26)