By Thábata Molina
@Thabatica
Mia is 7 years old. He traveled with his mother to Madrid a month ago and planned to return to Venezuela on an Estelar airline flight on Monday, November 24.. It is the smallest of the group of at least 60 people who remain stranded in Terminal 1 of the Adolfo Suárez – Barajas airport, after the announcement of the cancellation of flights to and from Caracas. She has a fever and an upset stomach that keeps her on the floor of the air terminal.
The rest of the adults resist. They have gone more than 24 hours without bathing, eating the little they can afford and no longer knowing who to contact, because after more than a day of the cancellation of their flight to Caracas, until now they have not received a communication from the airline in charge of the transfer.
“What we want is to return to our country. We don’t want a refund or anything, what we want is to return to Venezuela,” said José Enrique García Naranjo, who traveled to Spain a week ago for work reasons without knowing that the political situation and the tension between the Nicolás Maduro regime and the United States government would affect him.
García, who is among those who managed to check in, was surprised by the cancellation of the flight minutes before the airline notified it through the airport screens. He has written repeatedly to the airline’s WhatsApp, but the responses he receives are issued by a robot.
They will keep coming
The first group of affected people had planned to fly to Caracas on Monday, November 24 in the afternoon, but this Tuesday others joined with flights scheduled for Wednesday the 26th and Friday the 28th.
People from Denmark, Turkey and other European destinations also arrived at T1 with the intention of making a connection from Madrid to Caracas, so it is expected that the number of people affected will continue to increase in the coming days.
The main problem for these people is that the authorities at the Adolfo Suárez airport informed them that starting this Tuesday night they will not be able to sleep in the hallways of the air terminal and that they should seek a solution through the Venezuelan consulate in Madrid.
Among the group of affected people are 20 Colombian citizens who arrived from Türkiye on Sunday, November 23. The Colombian Foreign Ministry contacted them to ask for their information, with the intention of helping them find a solution that would return them to their country.
“We are part of those affected by the closure of Venezuelan airspace. The Colombian Foreign Ministry has already contacted a colleague of ours to ask us for the data, to see what they can manage for us, since the airline washed its hands of everything, because we had a connection from Turkey to Caracas and we were practically stranded here in Madrid,” declared Andrés Felipe Soto, one of those affected by the situation.
In the case of travelers bound for Caracas, the outlook is discouraging, as some of them have tried to communicate with the Venezuelan consulate in Madrid, through an email that appears on the website, but until this Tuesday afternoon none had received a response.
They ask for support from the AENA authorities (Spanish Airports and Air Navigation) to serve as a liaison with the Venezuelan authorities or with the Estelar airline, in order to give them some solution, since they warn that they are the most interested in returning to Venezuela and clearing the corridors of the air terminal.
The vast majority of those affected avoid giving their testimony to the media, as they say they fear being victims of retaliation by the Nicolás Maduro regime once they manage to return to Venezuela.
“We can’t be talking, because when we land in Maiquetía what they’re going to tell us is ‘Welcome, come over here and go straight to Sebin’. That’s why we can’t talk to the cameras,” said one of them.
Until noon this Tuesday, it appeared on the AENA website that for Wednesday the 26th there were two flights to Caracas scheduled for 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. This has given a little hope to those affected, even though the airline has not offered them a response.
Everyone hopes that there will be a quick solution that will allow them to return to Venezuela as soon as possible.
