Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in exile since late 2025, accused the government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez of closing the country's airspace to prevent her return, as Venezuela (a South American nation under Chavista rule since 1999) grapples with a devastating twin earthquake on June 24 that has killed more than 1,700 people and injured around 5,000. In a video posted from Panama, Machado said authorities had "mobilised the state apparatus" against her, including cancelling commercial flights, though she later claimed the government was forced to reverse the measure while still threatening those willing to facilitate her travel. Complicating the picture, Maiquetía International Airport — Venezuela's main gateway serving Caracas — has been closed until at least July 2 due to earthquake damage, with only partial humanitarian operations continuing while other airports in Valencia and Maracaibo remain partially open to international flights.
Mosaic News
Venezuelan opposition leader Machado accuses government of blocking her return after earthquake[Updated]
The death toll has climbed above 2,600, with identification of the dead emerging as a major challenge: a port storage facility in La Guaira has been converted into a makeshift morgue where families wait hours under the blazing sun to identify relatives from images cycling across television screens. Fuel shortages have forced excavators and cranes to halt operations at several rescue sites in La Guaira state — machinery at some locations sat idle from July 1 — though state oil company PDVSA has ordered its Puerto La Cruz refinery to increase diesel output. Machado's opposition movement has launched a digital database of the missing that now lists more than 36,000 people unaccounted for, surpassing the UN's earlier estimate of 50,000, while roughly 2,000 displaced people — including 300 children — are sheltering in Caracas's Parque del Este. Acting President Rodríguez's interim mandate expires Friday, July 3, adding political pressure as she seeks to contain criticism of her government's earthquake response as slow and disorganised.
The official death toll has risen to 2,295 with more than 11,000 injured and nearly 13,000 left homeless, while the United Nations estimates 50,000 people remain missing. Acting President Rodríguez declared seven days of national mourning as hope of finding further survivors dims — though a three-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble alive on Tuesday, and rescuers from seven countries were closing in Wednesday on Hernán Gil, a 43-year-old security guard who has survived a week trapped beneath a collapsed seven-story building in Catia La Mar. A separate humanitarian concern has emerged after Venezuela's intelligence agency, Sebin, blocked journalists and relatives from accessing the site in Macuto where 146 U.S.-deported migrants — allocated there by the state on the day of the earthquakes — remain unaccounted for under the rubble. Medical experts are now warning of a widening secondary health crisis, with hospital trauma units already reporting infection complications and aid workers documenting outbreaks of diarrhoea and other diseases among displaced people living in overcrowded shelters without clean water.