Venezuelans deported from the US are missing after earthquakes
Relatives desperately search for loved ones after a hotel, which housed more than 100 Venezuelans deported by the United States on Wednesday (24), collapsed during devastating earthquakes that occurred that same night.
The deportees had been taken to the Hotel Santuario, in La Guaira, a coastal city north of the capital, Caracas.
Hours later, two earthquakes of rare magnitude - the kind that occur once a century - struck Venezuela just seconds apart, causing widespread damage in La Guaira and killing at least 1,943 people, with many others still missing.
Ninoska Gutierrez was one of the people who survived the devastation at the Hotel Santuario.
"We were all alarmed; in fact, I ran out barefoot, wearing just the top of my clothes - I mean, there was no time for anything else," she told CNN.
"When I opened the bedroom door, I saw a crowd running... I was running - trying to get out of the way to let them pass and not get run over - when the wall right next to me suddenly broke; as it collapsed, I felt like I was floating in the air."
Gutierrez, 45, said he managed to remove debris that had fallen on his legs and crawled out through a hole that had opened in the ceiling.
She and several other deportees survived the hotel collapse, but many remain trapped in the rubble.
Luis Armando Dasilva said he and his family are anxiously awaiting news about his sister, Amanda Donizete, who was deported on Wednesday and has not been heard from since.
"They're not giving us answers about where she is - whether she's in a hospital or in the morgue. We've checked all of that and we haven't found her," he told CNN, referring to local authorities.
Dasilva said that Donizete was working in the American state of Georgia after fleeing the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. But when she found out that she would be sent back to her country, "she was very happy and wanted to see her family."
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Rescue teams have been sifting through the rubble of the hotel in a desperate attempt to save any possible survivors. However, days after the initial disaster, hope dwindles.
Some family members of the missing told CNN that they just want to be able to bury their loved ones with dignity. "Please, you who are here, help us, help us", pleaded José Gregorio Rincón Ávila, grandfather of a deportee.
"We have been waiting for many days. We already know that these bodies have been there since Wednesday, but at least let us take our loved ones home," he told CNN.
A spokesperson for the United States Department of Homeland Security stated that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was not responsible for deportees at the time the earthquakes occurred.
"This flight arrived safely in Venezuela, and all undocumented immigrants on board were repatriated. When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, the agency is no longer responsible for them," the spokesperson said.
The State Department declined to comment.
The deportation flight from Miami to Venezuela's Simón Bolívar International Airport, carrying 146 people - including 19 women and 7 children - landed at 10:22 a.m. (local time) on Wednesday, according to Venezuelan authorities and ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative by Human Rights First that tracks deportation flights.
The U.S. has sent search and rescue teams to Venezuela and has committed more than $300 million to relief efforts to date.
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Source: CNN