The Daily Journal — Two months after the earthquakes that devastated central Venezuela, a group of relatives of deportees from Flight 164 gathered Monday outside the headquarters of the Vuelta a la Patria Mission in Caracas to demand answers from the government about the fate of their loved ones, who became trapped when the Santuario La Llanada Hotel collapsed in La Guaira.
The protesters are demanding an official passenger list and want to know why authorities kept their relatives at the hotel when the disaster struck. According to the families, at least 147 deported migrants died when the building collapsed.
The Flight 164 tragedy
On June 24, 2026, a plane chartered by GlobalX landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía carrying 146 Venezuelans deported from the United States. The group included 120 men, 19 women, and seven minors traveling under the government-run Gran Misión Vuelta a la Patria program.
The flight originally departed from Phoenix, Arizona, with stops in El Paso, Texas, and Miami, Florida. Just hours after the passengers disembarked, two earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 struck the region, causing one of the most devastating disasters in Venezuela’s recent history, with nearly 6,500 deaths and an undetermined number of missing people.
Venezuelan authorities transferred the deportees to the Santuario La Llanada Hotel, a facility under the control of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), where they underwent medical examinations and identification procedures. The building collapsed during the earthquakes, burying most of its occupants under the rubble.
Testimonies from victims’ mothers reveal deep outrage over the conditions in which authorities kept their children.
Luz Marina Meléndez, mother of 27-year-old Angelo Mejía Meléndez, said her son lived in Tampa and was pursuing an asylum claim when authorities detained him following a traffic accident. He chose voluntary deportation and boarded Flight 164.
Meléndez received the last call from her son on June 24 at 4:37 p.m., when a Sebin officer put him on the phone. “Mom, I’m very tired. We’ll talk when I get home,” he told her. An hour and a half later, the earthquakes destroyed the hotel.
Oswadeliz Núñez, mother of 28-year-old Daniel Alejandro Núñez, directly questioned the state’s responsibility: “Why did they detain them improperly if they had no criminal records? If they had handed them over to their families, they would still be alive today.” She added: “Sebin bears responsibility for the fact that they were in that place.”
According to survivors’ accounts, authorities subjected the deportees to an “exhaustive investigation” upon their arrival in the country. “They told us that officials took their belongings and phones, demanded their passwords to check their social media accounts, called them traitors and mistreated them,” the mothers said.
Osvadeli Núñez, mother of another victim, said authorities also used the hotel to house people with drug problems whom they had taken off the streets.
Two months of silence
Two months after the tragedy, the families denounce what they describe as a “total information blackout” by authorities. Through the Vuelta a la Patria program, the Venezuelan government announced the arrival of Flight 164 and said officials had welcomed the passengers “with dignity” and followed “all necessary protocols,” but it has not provided an official public account of what specifically happened to this group.
“They did not receive proper treatment when they arrived here in Venezuela. Officials mistreated them and took their documents… that amounts to improper detention,” Osvadeli Núñez told reporters. “We want to know why. Where does it say that? Where is the protocol? Where is the deportation and repatriation procedure between the U.S. and Venezuela? We want to understand why authorities kept them under those conditions,” she said.
Yusmarina Meléndez, mother of another victim, said she learned about her son’s death from a survivor she found at a hospital. She found his body at a makeshift morgue at the port of La Guaira and identified him through his tattoos and a vaccination card he carried in his pocket. She is demanding that authorities publish a list with the full names and records of all those who died and survived.
“They have to take responsibility because these were people, human beings, and they were under their care,” she demanded.
During the demonstration, one of the affected mothers called for authorities to determine responsibility with a forceful statement: “You have to take responsibility when you fail. We failed you, and we failed all the families.”
She also recalled what her son told her during the deportation process: “I never thought being deported would be so hard.”
International support
The Miami-based Multicultural Association of Activists Voice and Expression (AMAVEX) has provided legal and humanitarian support to the families. The organization’s president, Helene Villalonga, said: “We decided to stand with these families because, when we began listening to them, we realized that too many questions surrounding Flight 164 still have no answers.”
The organization seeks to reconstruct the deportation operation from its origin in U.S. territory through the time Venezuelan authorities kept the citizens at the facility. “For us, this does not begin only with the earthquake and what happened at Santuario La Llanada,” the activist said.
Daniely Hurtado, widow of Eduardo José Osal Mujica, one of the passengers who died, said the state has not assisted.
Monday’s demonstration reflects the deep wound that the Flight 164 tragedy has left among dozens of Venezuelan families. Two months after the earthquakes, fundamental questions remain: How many of the 146 deportees survived? How many died? Why did authorities keep them at a hotel that, according to the mothers, served as a Sebin detention facility? Did authorities have safety protocols in place for the deportees?
As the government continues to offer no answers, the families have vowed to keep fighting. “We have a right to know,” they repeat outside the Vuelta a la Patria Mission headquarters in the heart of Caracas.
