In addition to the armored vehicles, 130 Brazilian soldiers were deployed in Roraima state, which borders both Venezuela and Guyana.
The Guaicuru armored vehicles will leave units in Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul, where they are located, and will add to the surge in soldiers in Roraima.
Tensions increased in this region of South America with the holding of a referendum in Venezuela on the annexation of the Essequibo region, which is currently administered by Guyana.
Venezuelans voted in favor of President Nicolas Maduro’s government’s intentions regarding Venezuela’s annexation of the Esquibo region last Sunday.
A day after the vote, Maduro announced that he had a plan to restore the rights of Venezuelans to the Essequibo ship.
However, for Venezuela to be able to carry out a military attack against Guyana, it must pass through the territory of the Brazilian state of Roraima.
According to the G1 news portal, Brazilian Defense Minister José Músio Monteiro said that sending armored vehicles was already planned to combat illegal mining in that region of the country, but that the vehicles could help with security.
According to the Brazilian minister, the equipment will be stationed in the Boa Vista barracks, the capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima, within a squadron that will transform into a cavalry regiment that includes 130 soldiers.
The Esquibo region, which appears on Venezuelan maps as an “area under claim,” has been under UN mediation since 1966, when the Geneva Agreement was signed.
The Esquibo River, which has an area of 160,000 square kilometers and is rich in minerals, is subject to the administration of Guyana, based on a document signed in Paris in 1899, specifying territorial borders that Venezuela does not accept.
The controversy has intensified in recent years after the North American oil company ExxonMobil discovered, in 2015, several reserves of crude oil in the territorial waters of the disputed region.
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