‘I’m free now’: Venezuelans held in El Salvador reunite with families

CARACAS/VALENCIA/CAPACHO - A singer and a barber were among former Venezuelan migrants who returned to their families on July 22, after spending months detained in a notorious prison in El Salvador before being sent back to Venezuela last week.

Singer Arturo Suarez was greeted with hugs and tears in working-class El Valle, south of capital Caracas, by his sister, aunt and cousins. He later wiped away tears as he spoke to his wife and daughter, who live in Chile, via video call.

“I’m free now, thank God, at last,” said Mr Suarez, who was arrested in February in North Carolina while filming a music video. He serenaded a crowd gathered in his family’s living room. “I still can’t believe it.”

The Venezuelans were sent to El Salvador from the US in March, after US President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang without normal immigration procedures.

The deportations drew fierce criticism from human rights groups and a legal battle with the Trump administration. Families and lawyers of many of the men have denied they have gang ties.

His wife has said Mr Suarez had gone to the US to boost his emerging music career and that he denied being a member of Tren de Aragua.

“I thought of my daughter, I thought of my wife, of my siblings, of my family, I asked for strength to not give up, to not allow myself to die,” Mr Suarez told journalists about his detention. “I didn’t – because I’m tough, I’m a Venezuelan.”

Mr Suarez and the other detainees deported to El Salvador from the US were returned to Venezuela on July 18 in a prisoner exchange. Since arriving, they have been undergoing medical checks and interviews with officials.

Two brothers – Mr Darwin Hernandez, a 30-year-old barber, and 23-year-old house painter Yeison Hernandez – were arrested alongside Mr Suarez in February. They arrived home to their parents and other family members in central Valencia on July 22.

“I asked God only for freedom, but more than anything that my family also be alive, to be able to leave and be with them like we are now,” said Mr Darwin Hernandez, a husband and a father to a six-year-old daughter.

Abuse allegations

Mr Suarez and Mr Hernandez both said guards at the Cecot prison told detainees they would only leave dead, and Mr Suarez said some detainees considered suicide.

Former detainee Alirio Belloso, 30, told Reuters he was beaten in prison.

“They beat us with their hands, shields and clubs, everywhere on our bodies,” Mr Belloso said after arriving in his home city of Maracaibo, in western Venezuela, where his family was waiting for him.

“I thought, if we’re already dead then why die in fear, it is better to die fighting.”

The former detainees’ comments tallied with other allegations of abuse made by former prisoners in videos broadcast on state television, including during a programme with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on the night of July 21.

Venezuela’s attorney-general said on July 21 that his office will investigate El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and other top officials over the alleged abuse.

Mr Bukele’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the alleged torture, but he said on social media late on July 21 that the Maduro government was “indignant” because it realised it no longer held “hostages from the most powerful country in the world” – a reference to the ten Americans formerly held in Venezuela who were freed under the deal.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson referred any allegation of mistreatment in Cecot to El Salvador’s government.

US Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the former detainees’ allegations of abuse.

“Once again, the media is falling all over itself to defend criminal illegal gang members,” she said in a statement.

“We hear far too much about gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims.”

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and State Department did not immediately respond to comment requests.

Reuters was not able to immediately confirm the abuse allegations.

Eighty Venezuelan prisoners – including opposition politicians – held within Venezuela are also supposed to be released in the swop. Judicial non-governmental organisation Foro Penal said on July 21 it had verified 48 releases.

The Venezuelan opposition has regularly critiqued the Maduro government for holding activists and others in abusive conditions within Venezuela.

Mr Andry Hernandez, a gay make-up artist who was detained at the US-Mexico border during the Biden administration, had an active asylum case when he was deported to Cecot. The US alleged gang membership based on his tattoos.

His parents were anxiously awaiting him in Capacho, near the Colombian border, on July 22.

“All this time I’ve slept badly. My wife would serve me a plate of food and I would wonder, ‘is he eating?’” said Mr Hernandez’s father Felipe.

Mr Hernandez, who said he suffered sexual abuse at Cecot in a video broadcast on state television on July 21, was able to call his parents to say he was on his way.

His mother, Alexi Romero, says she told him she is waiting with open arms. REUTERS