Venezuelans deported from U.S. hours before earthquakes hit are missing, some confirmed dead, families say - BERITAJA

Some families successful Venezuela are mourning and others are desperately trying to find loved ones who had been deported from the U.S. and arrived hours earlier the earthquakes struck past week.

The deportees were being processed astatine the Hotel Santuario La Llanada successful the coastal authorities of La Guaira, 1 of the hardest-hit areas. Families person confirmed immoderate deportees person died while others are unaccounted for.

Enit Hernández told Beritaja her husband, José Rafael Rossi Ydrogo, is 1 of the missing deportees.

José Rafael Rossi Ydrogo.Obtained by Beritaja

“On Tuesday he called maine and said they told him to stitchery his belongings because he was leaving the adjacent day. That was the past clip I ever heard from him,” Hernández said from Texas, wherever the mates lived.

Hernández said that her hubby was detained during an ICE check-in and that moreover though he was told a judge would reappraisal his case, he was deported Wednesday. In Fort Worth, Rossi Ydrogo owned a building business and remodeled homes.

The mates came to the U.S. successful 2021 and lived successful New Jersey pinch their girl earlier they moved to Texas.

“My full life changed successful conscionable 1 day. There was nary request for him to spell done each of this. I’m present unsocial pinch my girl now. It’s not easy,” she said.

Hernández said Rossi Ydrogo had conscionable called his relative successful Caracas 20 minutes earlier the world started to shake.

Rotating images showing the Hotel Santuario La Llanada connected March 20 and aft the earthquake Saturday.Planet Labs PBC

Asked for accusation about the flight, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that it “safely reached Venezuela” and that each the group connected committee had been returned home.

“When an individual is nary longer successful ICE custody, ICE is nary longer responsible for them,” the spokesperson said.

On committee the deportation formation were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and 7 children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an inaugural of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights, The Associated Press reported. The country’s main airport, Simón Bolivar International Airport, is successful La Guaira, wherever the Hotel Santuario La Llanada collapsed. Other deportees person been processed location successful the past.

Multiple relatives and friends person said authorities aren’t allowing them aliases rescue workers adjacent the collapsed building, making attempts to get accusation about impossible.

From Chile, a relative of Daniel Alejandro Nuñez Ramirez, 28, who’s besides missing, said that his mother was told he had been recovered live successful the rubble and had been taken retired but that truthful acold the family hasn’t recovered him successful immoderate of the hospitals.

“We consciousness destroyed, because it really hurts us,” said the cousin, Yaneth Gabriela Mejías Ramirez. “At the aforesaid time, we person religion we will find him. But moreover if he passed away, we want to find him.”

Mejías Ramírez said that successful the U.S., her relative had been moving successful building erstwhile constabulary stopped him 2 months agone for a insignificant postulation usurpation and that he agreed to beryllium deported to Venezuela pursuing his detention.

Angelo Mejía Meléndez, 27, was besides deported connected the “infamous” flight, arsenic immoderate relatives mention to it. His mother, Luz Marina Meléndez, told Noticias Telemundo that she recovered retired he was killed successful the earthquakes erstwhile a subsister told her he saw her boy vanish adjacent to him.

“I’m sad and I’m enraged,” Meléndez said, adding that the family was to person had a reunion that very weekend.

Katherine Arana, a Venezuelan American from Greenville, South Carolina, who is simply a friend of missing deportee Nuñez Ramirez, said that amid the deficiency of accusation and the ensuing chaos, she created a spreadsheet to support way of the deportees connected the flight.

She has heard from relatives that astatine slightest 25 deportees were killed, 21 were still missing Monday and 9 had survived. She besides said immoderate bodies recovered from the rubble hadn’t been identified.

In Venezuela, the number of dormant and injured has been rising since the magnitude-7.2 and -7.5 quakes struck Wednesday. The Venezuelan authorities raised the toll Monday to 1,719 dormant and 5,034 injured. The United Nations estimates 50,000 group are missing.

Rescue teams from about the world, including the U.S., person been searching frantically for days.