Venezuelans keep coming over Brazilian border despite attacks

Venezuelans desperate to leave their collapsing country continued to flow into Brazil despite fear of anti-migrant violence in the tense border town of Pacaraima.

Two days after a riot in which locals targeted Venezuelan camps, driving some 1,200 migrants back over the border, the crossing, reinforced by extra troops, was again busy yesterday.

One of the many money changers crossing each day from the Venezuelan city of Santa Elena de Uairen to change the country's almost worthless currency and the Brazilian real said Saturday's violence had shaken everyone.

"We were scared and didn't know what could happen," he said, asking not to be identified.

Despite that fear, the pressure to get out of Venezuela -- where under President Nicholas Maduro the once booming economy is in freefall and basic goods are hard to get -- is even greater.

Brazil's security minister, Sergio Etchegoyen, insisted that Brazil will remain open to its fleeing neighbors, saying "closing the border is unthinkable, because it is illegal."