Venezuela dismisses Guyana's border attack claim as fabrication: 'It's exhausting that they resort to such fabrications'

Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Yván Gil, on Wednesday dismissed the Guyanese government's report of an attack on a patrol on the border with the Caribbean country, in which a Guyanese soldier was injured, as a fabrication. 'It's becoming exhausting that the Guyanese government resorts, time and again, to these kinds of fabricated stories and setups,' Gil stated in a message published on X. The official said that Guyana cannot divert attention from the 'historical, legal, and political truth: the only valid way to resolve this controversy is the Geneva Agreement of 1966.' 'These recurrent smoke screens will not hide their defeat in the face of truth nor their refusal to comply with the only mechanism agreed upon by the parties,' the foreign minister added. On Monday, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) reported in a statement that a soldier was shot and injured in an attack on a Guyanese Army boat patrolling the border with Venezuela. The GDF indicated that the attack occurred as the boat was escorting three civilian vessels with people and cargo from Makapa to Eterinbang, localities situated on the Cuyuni River, in Guyana's Sevena Region. The patrol returned fire and managed to escort the convoy out of the area, which was the scene of similar attacks in 2025 attributed by Guyanese authorities to Venezuelan criminal groups. Monday's incident coincides with hearings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where Guyana and Venezuela are presenting their oral arguments on the dispute over the Esequibo border region. On Wednesday, Venezuela's agent to the ICJ, Samuel Moncada, rejected the jurisdiction of the United Nations' highest court in the conflict with Guyana over Esequibo, a territory of about 160,000 square kilometers rich in oil and minerals. The ICJ will seek to clarify the validity of the arbitration award of October 3, 1899, which established the border between then-British Guiana and the Caribbean country, and which Caracas declared null and void in 1962, considering it to have been surrounded by irregularities. EFE