The return trip of dozens of Venezuelans who were deported by the United States to their country turned into a tragedy, after they were detained in the coastal state of La Guaira when two strong earthquakes struck the region on June 24, causing a number of casualties among them, according to accounts of relatives and survivors.
146 Venezuelans, including 120 men, 19 women and 7 children, had arrived in Venezuela on a deportation flight from the United States just hours before the two earthquakes occurred, according to government data and media reports.
After their arrival, the group members were transferred to a facility in La Guaira state, where they were detained and their phones and personal belongings were taken from them, according to accounts from a number of group members and their relatives.
Oswadelis Nuñez, the mother of Daniel Alejandro Nuñez Ramírez, who died in the disaster, said that her son did not have any criminal record in the United States or Venezuela, wondering why he was detained inside the building at the time of the earthquake.
Speaking in front of journalists, she added: “We know that the earthquake was an accidental event, but why were they there without their belongings?”
According to the relatives of the victims, the detainees were not able to leave the building immediately after the earthquake, and according to their accounts, there was no clear plan for their evacuation, which led to the difficulty of reaching a number of them in light of the collapse of parts of the building and the damage to the surrounding area.
Nuñez said that her family spent 5 days searching for her son among hospitals and medical centers in La Guaira and Caracas, before his body was found in a morgue. He was scheduled to celebrate his twenty-ninth birthday on August 26.
Luz Maris Melendez, who lost her son Angelo David Mejia Melendez, also accused the authorities of failing to provide the necessary care for the detainees, demanding that those responsible be held accountable for the conditions they were in when the two earthquakes occurred.
The families of the victims demand an apology and moral compensation from the Venezuelan government, in addition to clarifications regarding the conditions of detention of the deportees and the measures taken to protect them, declaring their intention to file complaints at the local and international levels.
It also called on the families to review the procedures for deporting and re-receiving people, especially in cases that coincide with emergency circumstances or natural disasters, criticizing what it described as the lack of information regarding the fate of the people who were on the same deportation flight.
On June 24, Venezuela was exposed to two successive earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude, less than a minute apart, causing widespread destruction in several areas, and the state of La Guaira was one of the most affected areas.
The death toll from the disaster gradually escalated during the following weeks, as the Venezuelan authorities announced in early August that the number of deaths had risen to 6,125 people, in addition to tens of thousands of injuries, while hundreds of buildings were damaged and thousands of people found themselves without homes.
Later reports showed that the scale of the disaster was particularly large in La Guaira, where several buildings collapsed, while rescue teams faced great challenges during the search for missing persons and evacuating residents from the affected areas.
The tragedy of the deportees goes back to the first hours before the disaster, as the group members had arrived on the Venezuelan coast after their deportation from the United States, before they found themselves in one of the areas most affected by the two earthquakes, which prompted the families of the victims to demand an investigation into the conditions of their detention and the responsibility of the authorities supervising their transportation and residence.
