Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans trying to flee their nation’s economic meltdown face being shut out of neighbouring countries as alarm spreads over the scale of the exodus.

A mob in the Brazilian frontier town of Pacaraima burnt down a Venezuelan refugee camp and forced its inhabitants back across the border at the weekend. Residents blame the Venezuelans for a sharp rise in crime.

The government of the surrounding state, Roraima, petitioned Brazil’s Supreme Court yesterday to halt the entry of all Venezuelan migrants. President Temer said that additional troops would be sent to the frontier.

Brazilians burn the belongings of Venezuelan immigrants at the Pacaraima border control point at the weekend MAURICIO CASTILLO/REUTERS

Thousands of miles to the west, at the main crossing point between Colombia and Ecuador, hundreds of Venezuelans are stranded in freezing conditions after the Ecuadorian government declared that