Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion (SATT) Bion­di Bachew is as­sur­ing the pop­u­la­tion that there is no need for pan­ic buy­ing or rushed shop­ping.

The as­sur­ance came af­ter the Gov­ern­ment and the Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent put to rest re­ports that the US would ini­ti­ate strikes on land tar­gets in Venezuela “in a mat­ter of days,” linked to drug traf­fick­ing.

There were crowds at sev­er­al ma­jor su­per­mar­kets in South Trinidad yes­ter­day, caus­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion in some ar­eas. While this is typ­i­cal for month-end, some shop­pers ad­mit­ted that re­ports of pos­si­ble con­flict in the re­gion prompt­ed them to pur­chase ex­tra food and house­hold sup­plies in case they need­ed to re­main in­doors for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.