MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US Air Force plane takes off with help for Venezuela

The aircrafts transport boxes sealed with the label of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), contain food and assistance for about 25 thousand people

A C-17 cargo plane of the United States Air Force took off Saturday from the Homestead Air Force Base, in Florida, with the Venezuelan-Colombian border as the destination. The aircraft is one of three that will transport 250 tons of food, hygiene kits and nutritional supplements, a congressional aide to the US Congress told the Associated Press (AP).

Donald Trump’s government announced on Friday this additional humanitarian aid after it was announced that the president of PDVSA, General Manuel Quevedo, and key Venezuelan intelligence officers were added to a long list of sanctions by the US.

The aircrafts transport boxes sealed with the label of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contain hygiene, food and assistance supplies for some 25,000 people and it is estimated to land in the border city of Cúcuta in the course of the Saturday afternoon.

The aid is added to the pressures of the Venezuelan opposition and several countries in order to ask the president of Venezuela, considered illegitimate by the administration of Trump, Nicolás Maduro, to renounce the power and starts the process of political transition proposed by the declared interim president, Juan Guaidó as mandated by the Venezuelan Constitution.

The cargo that arrives this Saturday is added to those wich arrived during the last days by land, concentrated in the largest storage center of humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela on the Colombian side of the border and donated by dozens of countries of the bloc that recognizes the interim presidency of Guaidó.