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Monday, July 21, 2025

Venezuelans back home as US allows repatriation flight

by

1605 days ago
20210227
The Venezuelan state airline Conviasa flight leaves Piarco  International Airport yesterday, carrying 96 people – 83 adults and 13 children.

The Venezuelan state airline Conviasa flight leaves Piarco International Airport yesterday, carrying 96 people – 83 adults and 13 children.

Venezue­lan na­tion­als who were de­layed on Thurs­day in re­turn­ing home via a plane sanc­tioned by the Unit­ed States’ Gov­ern­ment de­part­ed T&T just af­ter 6 pm yes­ter­day af­ter a suc­cess­ful Gov­ern­ment out­reach to the US Em­bassy.

The Em­bassy agreed the hu­man­i­tar­i­an flight wouldn’t at­tract sanc­tions from the US, clear­ing the way for the air­craft to fly to T&T.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young con­firmed this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day re­ply­ing to queries from Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Sad­dam Ho­sein on the is­sue.

Al­most 100 Venezue­lans had ex­pect­ed to leave T&T to re­turn home on Thurs­day on a Con­vi­asa air­craft arranged by the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment. Among those who were to re­turn were peo­ple with ter­mi­nal ill­ness­es and dis­abil­i­ties, the el­der­ly and chil­dren.

But the plane was not al­lowed by T&T au­thor­i­ties to land af­ter it found to be a plane sanc­tioned by the US Gov­ern­ment.

The group com­plained bit­ter­ly at the air­port Thurs­day.

Both the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty And For­eign Af­fairs Min­istries as­sured they were work­ing on the is­sue.

Yes­ter­day Young said the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment had told T&T there were a num­ber of na­tion­als they want­ed to repa­tri­ate them­selves, with­out Gov­ern­ment play­ing any role in this.

He said in­for­ma­tion on the flight came to the nec­es­sary agen­cies in T&T in­clud­ing Civ­il Avi­a­tion. But the lat­ter di­vi­sion red-flagged the plane on Wednes­day as one which was among air­craft sanc­tioned by the US Gov­ern­ment.

As soon as that was brought to his at­ten­tion, Young said T&T in­formed the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties that this coun­try wouldn’t be per­mit­ted to grant per­mis­sion for the sanc­tioned air­craft to en­ter.

“But due to the na­ture of this mer­cy hu­man­i­tar­i­an ex­er­cise arranged by the Venezue­lan Gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate their na­tion­als, I im­me­di­ate­ly reached out to the US Em­bassy in T&T and had a con­ver­sa­tion,” he said.

He said he not­ed the cir­cum­stances, the hu­man­i­tar­i­an na­ture of the ex­er­cise, and sought their po­si­tion re­gard­ing the sanc­tions on the plane which was on the US’ sanc­tion list.

Venezuelan nationals wait for the repatriation flight yesterday at Piarco International Airport.

Venezuelan nationals wait for the repatriation flight yesterday at Piarco International Airport.

Shirley Bahadur

T&T asked if the US would per­mit the mer­cy and hu­man­i­tar­i­an ex­er­cise.

The min­istries of For­eign Af­fairs and Cari­com Af­fairs and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty were able to se­cure writ­ten word from the US that this par­tic­u­lar ex­er­cise wouldn’t at­tract sanc­tions and the US took the po­si­tion the ex­er­cise could oc­cur.

Young said he signed the ap­proval yes­ter­day for the 6 pm flight to take the Venezue­lans home on the plane.

Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers con­tract COVID-19

On an­oth­er query, Young con­firmed that ten more Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers have con­tract­ed COVID-19 and an­oth­er 39 from the same shift as the 10 are quar­an­tined.

This is the sec­ond set of Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers af­ter it was re­port­ed on Mon­day that three of­fi­cers got the virus and 20 were quar­an­tined.

Young as­sured there was no short­age of Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers at the Pi­ar­co air­port. He said the air­port doesn’t have the high traf­fic it had pre-COVID.

While there is usu­al­ly 90 Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers on shifts, out of that num­ber there are cur­rent­ly 51 of­fi­cers work­ing five shifts in batch­es of 10 per shift.

“I’m told this is suf­fi­cient,” he added.

There won’t be any ro­ta­tion of of­fi­cers from March 1 as was usu­al due to the re­cent virus.

Young de­tailed that Per­son­al Pro­tec­tive Equip­ment (PPE) as­signed to of­fi­cers from gloves and masks to sani­tis­ers and spray dis­in­fec­tant for ar­eas plus sani­tis­ing of Im­mi­gra­tion sec­tions by the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T.

 Venezuelan Nationals wait in the departer lounge at Piarco International Airport yesterday to board the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa flight carrying 96 people – 83 adults and 13 children.

Venezuelan Nationals wait in the departer lounge at Piarco International Airport yesterday to board the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa flight carrying 96 people – 83 adults and 13 children.


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