DHAKA: Hundreds of National Guardsmen in riot gear and armoured vehicles have prevented an `empty pots march` from reaching Venezuela`s Food Ministry to protest against shortages of staple items.

More than 5,000 protesters banged pots, blew horns and whistles and carried banners in Caracas, the capital, on Saturday to decry crippling inflation and now-chronic shortages of basics including flour, milk and toilet paper, Al-Jazeera reported.

Protests were also held in several other cities including Maracaibo, San Cristobal, Valencia, Isla de Margarita and Puerto Ordaz. Local television did not broadcast any images of the marches, the AFP news agency reported.

All over Venezuela, people spend hours every week queuing up at supermarkets, often before dawn, without even knowing what may arrive.

"There`s nothing to buy. You can only buy what the government lets enter the country because everything is imported. There`s no beef. There`s no chicken," said Zoraida Carrillo, a 50-year-old marcher in Caracas.

The capital`s government-allied mayor had refused the marchers a permit to hold the rally, leading opposition leader Henrique Capriles to accuse authorities of trying to "criminalise" peaceful protests, the AP news agency reported.

"Nicolas [Maduro] is afraid of the empty pots of our people. He mobilizes hundreds of soldiers against empty pots," he said of the man who defeated him by a narrow margin in presidential elections last April.

Capriles also reiterated opposition complaints that the government is sending "functionaries and groups of paramilitaries, which they have armed, to put down protests".

President Nicolas Maduro has faced several weeks of daily student-led protests across the nation that he says are an attempt by far-right provocateurs to overthrow him.

They have been joined by mostly middle-class Venezuelans fed up with inflation that reached 56 percent last year and one of the highest murder rates in the world.

BDST: 0915 HRS, MAR 09, 2014