More than 200 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador for the administration of President Donald Trump, were accused of belonging to the extinct Group, Aragua Train, are in a situation of “forced disappearance and arbitrary detention,” denounced the Non -Governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).
On March 15, the US government sent 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where the Nayib Bukele government imprisoned them at the Center for Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a megacárcel originally destined for 40,000 local gang members.
Through a statement, the Human Rights Organization ensures that after interviews conducted to forty relatives of the people sent to El Salvador, it was able to verify that “Venezuelans remain incommunicado” since their transfer to the Central American country, EFE says.
The family indicated, according to the organization, that “Salvadoran officials have not given them answers and that the US authorities affirmed that they could not share any information about the whereabouts of their relatives.”
“These forced disappearances constitute a serious violation of International Human Rights Law,” said Juanita Goebertus, director of the Division of the Americas of Human Rights Watch.
“The cruelty of the governments of the United States and El Salvador has left these people out of the protection of the law and has caused their families an immense pain,” Goebertus said.
HRW urged US authorities to make public the identity of Venezuelans who were deported to El Salvador and the Salvadoran government to “confirm the specific whereabouts of detainees, reveal if there is any legal basis for their detention and allow them to contact the outside world.”
The NGO sent a letter to the Salvadoran authorities on April 5 requesting information on the identity of the detainees, their detention conditions in the CECOT and the legal basis of its arrest, “but the Government of El Salvador has not responded,” he said.
All relatives of detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that US migration authorities told them that they would be returned to Venezuela. None told him that he would be sent to El Salvador.
“No one should be seen in the situation of having to collect information pieces from the media or interpret the silence of the authorities to find out where their relatives are being held,” said Goebertus.
According to international law, “a forced disappearance occurs when the authorities deprive a person of their freedom and then refuse to reveal their state or whereabouts,” HRW recalled.
The White House officially announced that President Trump will meet next Monday with his Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, who has agreed to imprison in his country migrants expelled by Washington.
Total Bukele Government Hermeticism
Salvadoran authorities keep silent about the number of flights and the number of immigrants deported from the United States in recent months, according to a report by the newspaper La Prensa Graphic, cited by AVN.
The report, based on data from the witness observatory on the border (Witness at the Border), points out that El Salvador received 14 flights with deportees or expelled from the United States. Of these, four included Venezuelans accused by the US authorities of supposedly belonging to the Aragua train.
The situation of Venezuelans held in the Center for Confinement against Terrorism (CECOT) in El Salvador is uncertain. Defensor lawyers have denounced that they are not allowed access to detainees.
Recently, they filed a demand for unconstitutionality before the Supreme Court of Justice, arguing that the reception of 238 Venezuelans deported from the United States and their imprisonment in subhuman conditions violate national laws and international treaties on human rights.
The first 238 Venezuelans arrived in the country on March 15 and were transferred directly to the CECOT, without prior trial or conviction.
The graphic press stressed that the Salvadoran government has not provided official information on flights sent with Salvadorans detained by trying irregularly to US territory.
It is also unknown if returned people receive some kind of support to facilitate their reintegration into society.
According to witnesses on the border, in March the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) received a total of 82 flights with returned nationals. The breakdown includes 35 flights to Guatemala, 33 to Honduras and 14 to El Salvador, of which eight used military planes.
