More than 500 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States are expected to arrive in Venezuela on Friday on two flights as part of the government’s “Return to the Homeland” plan.
The first plane is due to arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, La Guaira state, “with migrants fleeing persecution from the United States, where they were hunted directly,” President Nicolas Maduro announced on Wednesday during the inauguration of a hospital centre. He explained that 300 men and women who “escaped persecution in the US” will return from Mexico on a Conviasa (Venezuelan Consortium of Aviation Industry and Air Transport) plane.
Diosdado Cabello, secretary general of Venezuela’s United Socialist Party, said 150 minors were on the flight.
Maduro said another Conviasa plane will arrive on Thursday “with migrants rescued from prisons where they were kidnapped in the United States.” He also specified that they will rescue “a large group of more than 200 Venezuelans who are in prison, many of them imprisoned for a year or a year and a half.”
Venezuela’s Great Mission
The president noted that the vast majority of cases are economic migrants who left the country because of sanctions in search of an alternative and ended up being persecuted by the US government. He also indicated that a US plane is expected to arrive on Friday at 6 p.m. local time to carry out the weekly flight to rescue new migrants. He reiterated that Venezuela is the only country in the world that has a Great Mission (Return to the Homeland) to comprehensively care for its migrants.
Maduro emphasised that the kidnapping of these compatriots is an act of massive violation of human rights and international law, and said they are victims of brutal persecution. He also reiterated the innocence of the deported Venezuelans and said that “there is no evidence that they committed any crime” and that they were sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador without access to lawyers or justice, which is a crime against humanity.
Relatives of the abducted migrants, supported by the community, gathered outside the Salvadoran Embassy in Caracas last night to take part in a vigil in solidarity with their compatriots.
