The cruel fate of US deportees to Venezuela: Families search amid chaos and government obstacles

When Flight 164 landed in Venezuela from the United States, many families were expecting a reunion. Some of the 147 passengers had been away from the country for more than a decade and, although deportation meant a painful return, it also offered the chance to see and embrace their loved ones again. But within hours, and amid the earthquakes that struck the country, that expectation turned into a desperate search for information about what had happened to those on board.

A week after the earthquakes, dozens of families are still trying to piece together the fate of the 146 deportees who arrived in Venezuela on Flight 164. Some say that confusion in the handling of lists of the injured, the dead and the missing, combined with obstacles imposed by government officials during the search effort, has prevented them from learning the whereabouts of their relatives. All of the deportees had been taken to the Santuario La Llanada Hotel for medical examinations and fingerprint registration when the building collapsed.

“My son was pulled from the rubble and taken to José María Vargas Hospital. Some of the other deportees who were with him saw him there and confirmed that he was in a lot of pain but in relatively good condition. Yet his name never appeared on the list of survivors the authorities gave us,” says Carol, the mother of Arturo Rafael Lugo Rodríguez, who had lived in the United States for eight years before being deported.

Since then, Carol has searched morgues in Caracas and La Guaira, as well as hospitals and shelters for earthquake victims. She also says she encountered obstacles during the search.

“When my husband went to the hospital where our son was last seen alive, the authorities would not let him in. He had to ask a group of rescue workers from Anaco to accompany him in order to gain access,” she says.

Carol says that, in addition to the testimony of those who saw her son at the hospital, she obtained a handwritten list from the medical center that included his name. “The Sebin [Venezuela’s feared political police] only tells us that he is neither among the dead nor among the injured, and that he is on the list of missing persons. But all the information we have gathered contradicts what they are telling us,” she says.

The search for Ángel Jesús Romero Gaviria has left his sister, Glina Melissa Ospino, trying to make sense of a puzzle of conflicting accounts. First, she was told that he was alive and had been transferred to the Military Hospital. Hours later, she found his name on a list at the Bello Monte morgue. Then it appeared again, this time in a register at Los Silos, the site set up to receive the hundreds of bodies recovered after the earthquakes.

“His name has appeared on too many lists, and we still haven’t been able to find him. We no longer know which information is true,” she says. She also says she received reports from relatives who were prevented by Sebin officers from approaching the hotel site during the first days of the search.

On her phone, she keeps a log of the family’s efforts: more than 25 locations visited, including hospitals, morgues, police offices, airports and the area where the building collapsed.

Branli Zárate, 28, offers another piece of the story. He is one of the deportees who survived the collapse. He remembers sleeping in a room with 14 other people, where the bunk beds were in such bad shape that several mattresses had been placed directly on the floor.

“When I was rescued, I saw several of my fellow passengers from the flight. At first, I thought only four people had made it out of my room. Then I found 10, and later even more at the hospital. That’s why the figures of 12 survivors don’t add up for me. I’m sure more of us survived.”

Lawyer Julio Henríquez argues that, because the deportees were being required to remain at the hotel while authorities completed identification and registration procedures, the state was responsible for their welfare.

“This implies a heightened duty to inform families. It is not enough to simply say who died or who survived. The State must explain what happened and ensure that family members can exercise their right to know the truth and bid a dignified farewell to their loved ones. Beyond the violation of national and international laws, there is an element of tremendous cruelty that causes extraordinary harm to people.”

Without phones

Luis Daniel Castillo, another survivor of the hotel collapse, says he will never forget the contradiction of that night. Castillo, 42, recalls that the door of the room where he slept was constantly watched by a police officer. “He kept telling us that we were not being detained, but he took everyone’s phones away. He even asked for our passwords,” he says.

He describes the hotel as a run-down building, with unusable beds and mattresses scattered across the floor. Nine people survived in his room, including four women. The five children who had been on the flight also made it out alive, including a five-month-old baby whom, he says, another deportee rescued.

“I think around 30 of us survived,” he says.

After the collapse, he remained near the rubble for hours. He says that during that time he did not see any authorities arrive to coordinate rescue operations or assist the injured. Without a phone and unsure what to do, he decided to walk alone from La Guaira to Caracas.

“I crossed all of La Guaira and saw the destruction everywhere. Then someone lent me a phone and I was able to call my friend. It took him three hours to find me.”

Castillo says that although officials did not physically mistreat him during the night at the hotel, the confiscation of phones and the conditions there made it clear that the group was under control. He also recalls that during the flight from the United States, deportees were handcuffed at the wrists and ankles, and that the restraints were removed only after they arrived in Maiquetía.

He then pauses for a few seconds and raises a question that still haunts him: “What if the earthquake had struck while we were landing? We would have died in handcuffs, unable to escape.”

Anderson Salcedo, 21, was another survivor pulled alive from the rubble of the Santuario La Llanada Hotel after spending 40 hours trapped beneath the debris. He survived, but his injuries were so severe that doctors had to amputate both legs.

For his mother, Yulis Salcedo, the questions began long before he was rescued.

“He told me they had taken them to a hotel. I imagined a safe place. I never thought he was in a building in such poor condition. Why were they forced to stay there? Why were their phones taken away?” she asks.

Yulis says that confiscating the deportees’ phones and identity documents left families with no way to locate them when the earthquake struck and complicated efforts to identify victims and survivors for days afterward.

“I had prepared the house for his return. I thought the deportation was the end of a nightmare. I never imagined it was only the beginning of another one.”

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