AL JAZEERA: Venezuelan offensive sends thousands of civilians into Colombia →

When the Venezuelan military helicopters started firing shots and the bombing began, Yanet Garcia fled her home. With her family in tow, she made it safely across the border to Colombia in just a few hours.

Garcia, 40, from the outskirts of a small Venezuelan border town called La Victoria, had to force her 82-year-old father off their small farm to come with them. “Let them kill me,” he shouted at her, but eventually relented.

Intense and continual armed clashes between the elite Venezuela military unit, known as FANB, and Colombian rebel dissident groups have taken place in various small border towns of Apure state since March 21 [Steven Grattan/Al Jazeera]