Six dissidents granted asylum in the Argentine embassy in Caracas complete 10 days without basic services

The six collaborators of the Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, sheltered since March in the Argentine embassy in Caracas, are celebrating ten days this Tuesday without electricity and drinking water supply, their political organization denounced.

“The power supply has been cut off since Saturday, November 23 at the diplomatic headquarters. It’s been 10 days. Access to water tanker trucks is prohibited. The water does not arrive fixed, as in all of Venezuela. The 6 asylum seekers keep food in the refrigerator with a small plant that turns on for a few hours of the day and night,” details a publication from the Human Rights Committee of Vente Venezuela.

The former opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, whom countries such as the United States and Ecuador recognize as the elected president of Venezuela, said this Tuesday that the actions against asylum seekers are acts of “torture.”

“The same thing that all Venezuelans are subjected to. This has to end! We are denouncing this serious situation in all international bodies,” he wrote on his X account.

Magalli Meda, opposition campaign manager; Pedro Urruchurtu, international coordinator of the Vente Venezuela party led by Machado, Claudia Macero; communications coordinator of Vente Venezuela; the former parliamentarian, Omar González; the electoral coordinator of the campaign command, Humberto Villalobos and the former minister and advisor, Fernando Martínez Mottola, are the six people sheltered in the diplomatic headquarters.

Brazil assumed custody and representation of the Argentine embassy in Venezuela, after Caracas and Buenos Aires broke diplomatic relations, following the presidential elections of July 28.

Nicolás Maduro was proclaimed the winner of the presidential elections, but the opposition, which published copies of the minutes kept by its table witnesses, denounced fraud and attributed the victory to González Urrutia, currently in “forced” exile in Spain.

Part of the international community has not recognized Maduro as the winner and has called for independent verification of the results that caused protests that left 28 people dead and more than 2,400 detained.

The government has said the demonstrations that resulted in violence were coordinated by the opposition.

Machado’s six collaborators, who have arrest warrants after being accused of allegedly organizing destabilizing plans against the elections, have not received safe passage despite diplomatic efforts by Brazil.

The Venezuelan ruling party has said that the six asylum seekers have conspired from the diplomatic headquarters.

The former heads of State and Government who make up the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (Grupo Idea), among them Mariano Rajoy, from Spain; Vicente Fox, from Mexico, and Laura Chinchilla, from Costa Rica, requested the Apostolic Nuncio in Caracas and the International Committee of the Red Cross to assume the duties of humanitarian protection that correspond to the case, since they consider that the six asylum seekers are being treated as “ prisoners.”

The surroundings of the residence of the Argentine embassy in Caracas are guarded by security agents, sometimes some of them hooded and armed.

The opposition has expressed concern about the possibility of an assault on the headquarters and has denounced the violation of international treaties.

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