124 Venezuelans deported on Sunday

THE Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuelan authorities deported 124 Venezuelans to their country on Sunday.

Vice Admiral Euclides Brito, commander of the 61 Integral Defence Zone in Delta Amacuro, Venezuela (Zodi), announced this on Monday through a Venezuelan radio station.

Brito was speaking with the governor of Delta Amacuro Liseta Hernández when he said the group of 124 Venezuelans is travelling on a Venezuelan navy ship.

"We are waiting for our compatriots who come back to Venezuela through the Plan Vuelta a la Patria (Return to the Homeland Plan). We await them with open arms," ​​he said.

The Twitter account of the Guiria Military Hospital said doctors travelled from there in the AB Margarita71 boat to deal with the deportees, whom they tested for covid19. They will all be sent into home quarantine when they arrive in Venezuela.

Of the 124 deportees, 44 were detained at the Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), Aripo, while another group was at the Heliport in Chaguaramas. They were joined by humanitarian cases.

This is the first of two trips that will take Venezuelans home this week from TT. The next voyage will be a repatriation trip this weekend.

Officials from the Venezuelan embassy in Port of Spain told Newsday last week they were completing the details of the repatriation of 700 Venezuelans on a ferry.

These 700 decided to go home voluntarily after being unemployed here owing to restrictions against covid19, or because of illness.

Although the date and time are not confirmed, several of the travellers selected by the embassy told Newsday the trip will be this Saturday, July 17. A ferry is scheduled to leave Port of Spain and arrive at a port in the state of Anzoátegui, Venezuela.

These two shipments of Venezuelan nationals this week will add more than 1,000 people who have returned to their country in 2021.

Two of the trips have been deportations, taking home 172 people in April and 124 this Sunday.

In February, 95 Venezuelans left on a Piarco-Caracas flight.