Mexico City.- Yenny Morales, 33, left her native Venezuela because she felt she had no other option. Her 9-year-old son suffers from a mental disability and, in a country where 80% of the population lives in poverty, she could not afford a specialist.
“I had to run away because they didn’t send him to a neurologist. The health of our children comes first,” said Morales, who has been waiting in Mexico for an appointment to apply for asylum in the United States.
Since Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela, in which both the current president, Nicolás Maduro, and the country’s main opposition coalition claimed victory, his concerns have focused on his family back home. “This is a fraud,” he said, referring to the widely criticized results. “That’s what our relatives are fighting for.”
He said he had not heard from his family since Tuesday morning.
Morales, who lives in a makeshift camp in the heart of Mexico City, is one of millions of Venezuelan migrants increasingly worried about their friends and relatives back home. Having traversed Central America in search of a better life, they are closely following protests sparked by the announcement that Maduro had won a third six-year term.
Sunday’s election was one of the most peaceful in the country’s recent history, reflecting widespread hope that Venezuela can avoid bloodshed and end 25 years of one-party rule.
“I am very disappointed with what is happening in my country,” said Gerardo Uzcategui, 56, who spent four years in Cali, Colombia, before beginning his journey to the United States.
Uzcategui, a former police officer who oversaw security for a government minister, said his entire family has fled. He has a daughter in Argentina and a son in Mexico.
“We were happy at 3pm that there was supposed to be a change,” he said. “Look, at 11pm everything changed for us and it is hard, hard for everyone.”
Falling oil prices, high prices and hyperinflation that exceeded 130,000% have caused social unrest and mass emigration in Venezuela, pushing more than 7.7 million people to emigrate in the last decade.
Morales’ phone is flooded with information about what is happening in his country. He shared audio of a friend warning protesters to cover their faces; videos of children banging pots and pans; and a photo of a close friend who he says was killed after the first day of protests.
Venezuela-based human rights group Foro Penal reported Tuesday that 11 people, including two minors, had been killed in election-related unrest.
Herberto Lugo, 48, says he is relieved that his family in Venezuela is safe, as they live in the coastal city of Maracaibo, where no violent protests have been reported. But that does not change his view of Maduro’s iron grip on Venezuela.
Lugo, who believes opposition leader and former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez was the clear winner of the election, says he feels “uncomfortable and dissatisfied with what is happening in our country.” He added that if he had the chance to return, he would join the protests.
“People are fighting, in Venezuela they are fighting and we hope that Maduro leaves this week,” said Lugo. “If he doesn’t leave this week, he will never leave.”
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