Venezuelan military personnel are deserting President Nicolas Maduro in growing numbers and fleeing to Colombia and Brazil.

That's according to six deserters from the National Guard - a lieutenant and five sergeants now living in Brazil -who asked Reuters to withhold their names due to fear of reprisals against their families.

They said soldiers are increasingly refusing to follow Maduro's orders to repress protests against the socialist government.

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) VENEZUELAN MILITARY DESERTER, SERGEANT O.P., SAYING: "(You're supposed) to protect the people, and the governments wants you to attack the people.

We can't do it." Rebellion in the middle ranks of the National Guard has been contained by intimidation- the deserters say -the government is tapping the phones of military personnel suspected of anti-Maduro sympathies and monitoring their behavior.

But top armed forces commanders have still remained loyal to Maduro.

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) VENEZUELAN MILITARY DESERTER, SERGEANT O.P., SAYING: "The president wants to control everything, wants to have all the military high-level, the generals, in good positions so that they eat well, feed their families well, have their pockets lined, so that they don't turn on him.

Because he knows that if they are taken out of their positions, those military (officials) will turn their backs on him, and they are the ones that can carry out a coup d'etat." The head of Venezuela's opposition-led congress, Juan Guaido, backed by most Western nations, is trying to oust Maduro -claiming that his 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

Guaido has led regular protests against Maduro inside Venezuela..

Some of which have turned deadly... (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) VENEZUELAN MILITARY DESERTER, SERGEANT O.P., SAYING: If this continues like this, the streets will be stained in blood, a lot of blood, because that's what the government wants.

With support dwindling for Maduro--the deserters say- that the government has released jail inmates and put them in National Guard uniforms, to the disgust of soldiers with years of military career behind them.

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) VENEZUELAN MILITARY DESERTER, SERGEANT D.V., SAYING: "They (Venezuelan authorities) call us deserters, but we aren't deserters nor cowards.

Refusing to turn out weapons on the people does not make us deserters, it makes us heroes of the nation." Colombian immigration authorities said 1400 people from the Venezuela's armed forces had left the country for Colombia this year.