In the weeks following that incident, Venezuela temporarily opened the border for short periods to allow people to buy food and medicine.
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Venezuela and Colombia agree to reopen pedestrian border crossings between their countries, a year after Venezuela closed the frontier in a dispute over security and smuggling.
Some 350 volunteers will try to set a record for the largest Singapore flag made of canned food today, with 16,000 cans of food.
The partial reopening will allow pedestrians to cross at five points along the border for fifteen hours a day (5am to 8pm) starting Saturday.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos met in Bolivar state, southeast Venezuela to assess the question of the border between the two countries, closed for nearly a year.
“In recent months what is clear is that we will open the border in a controlled manner and gradually”, Santos said after a Thursday meeting with Maduro.
Santos said the two countries also agreed to exchange customs information to fight petrol smuggling – one reason Maduro cited for closing the border.
The weekend is sure to see a crush of Venezuelans flooding into Colombia to buy food and medicine.
The Colombian president also said further talks will aim to reopen the border to freight.
According to Maduro, smuggling had be carried out by Colombians who crossed the border into Venezuela looking for products at lower prices.
Maduro ordered the border to be closed in August 2015 after former Colombian paramilitaries attacked a Venezuelan military patrol and wounded three soldiers.
The 2,200-kilometer (1,350-mile) border has always been plagued by drug and contraband smuggling, another reason Maduro had cited for last year’s closing.
Maduro said improvements in bilateral relations and in border security helped the leaders reach the decision to reopen the border.
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Following the closures, traffic fell from 100,000 people a day to just 3,000 individuals with special permits, including pupils attending school in Colombia and chronically ill patients.
