“It hurts our souls”: Venezuelans react to the first video of relatives in the Salvadoranian prison to Matt Gaetz TV report

Cnn
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Mirelis Cacique López sits on a couch in her house in Maracay, Venezuela, and watches her son Francisco Javier García Cacique on her cell phone in the first video, which was sent by a group of Venezelaners by the United States to El Salvador's Maximum Security Cecot.

“I recognized my son among the boys,” said Cacique López to CNN. “We thank God that we have allowed ourselves to see our relatives themselves under these conditions,” she added, insisting that she would continue to pray for her release.

The video was broadcast on Tuesday at the One America News Network on a show, which was moderated by the former US Republican Congress Member Matt Gaetz. He visited Cecot and had access to the prison wing, in which the group of more than 200 Venezuelans, who were deported by the government of President Donald Trump, were accused of being members of the Venezolan ribbon tren de Aragua under the controversy use of the law on the alien enemies.

The report shows a minute of the Venezuelans behind bars, dressed in white T-shirts and shorts, the uniform of the Cecot prisoners. From the moment the TV cameras enter the prison, the prisoners react with calls to “freedom, freedom!” And “Venezuela!” While another group with four fingers makes a fist over their thumb, a universal gesture asks for help.

Yenni Luz Rincón Ramírez identified her brother Jonathan Miguel Ramírez in the video. “I enjoyed it because I could finally see him after 60 days,” she said to CNN from Venezuela. She insisted that her brother's detention was unfair and claimed that he was not a member of Tren de Aragua.

Rincón Ramírez is not the only one who was able to see a loved one for the first time since the deportations were announced in March.

Blanca Martínez told CNN that she learned that her partner Miguel Ángel Rojas had been deported to El Salvador by a list published by media transactions. Since then she hadn't heard anything. So far, neither the United States nor the Salvadoran government have published official lists with the names of those who have been deported to Cecot.

“It made me sad to see him there without knowing how he really is,” said Martínez, adding that Rojas suffered from depression and that he knows that he is arrested in Cecot causes her great fear.

Angie Ríos, a US citizen, said CNN in a telephone interview that she recognized her husband Jesús Ríos in the video. “I saw him and heard him,” she said. “He is the most beautiful of everyone,” she said lovingly about her partner. Ríos added when she last saw that her husband was on March 15th.

“In this video I feel that he is fighting for his voice to be heard.”

CNN could not check whether these people in the USA have a criminal record and contacted the Ministry of Homeland Protection for a comment.

After the publication of the video, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro again condemned what he sees as a kidnapping of Venezuelan citizens for El Salvador.

“I swear that we kidnapped the 253 Venezuelans in El Salvador in concentration camps, as can be seen today,” he said on Tuesday. “Let us request that these young people who are kidnapped without court proceedings without the right to appear in front of a judge without the right to defend without a crime, and we are ready to pick them up in a Venezuelan plane and bring them back to their families,” he added.

CNN has contacted the Salvadoranian presidency to comment on Maduro's statements.

In April, Salvadoranian President Nayib Bukele Maduro proposed an exchange of people who were deported and imprisoned to his country and for what he sees as the “political prisoner” of the Venezuelan government. Maduro replied by demanding access to the prisoners for lawyers and family members.

In March, El Salvador agreed to capture up to 300 immigrants from the Trump government in Cecot. According to an agreement, El Salvador would receive about 6 million US dollars from the United States to keep them there.

Osmary Hernández and Caroll Alvarado contributed to this report.