Three months after the double earthquake that shook the northern part of Venezuela, Amnesty International (AI) This Wednesday he denounced the opacity and lack of transparency of the authorities in the management of the emergency, and urged the national Executive to focus the recovery phase on the dignity and respect for the human rights of the victims.
Through an official statement, the director of the organization for the Americas, Ana Piquer, highlighted the existence of an outstanding state debt with the affected population.
The statement is based on direct monitoring carried out on victims in Caracas and the state La Guairascene of the effect of the earthquakes of June 24 with magnitude 7.2 and 7.5.
“Three months after these events, there remains a debt towards the affected people that must be settled by focusing recovery on their human rights and dignity,” said the AI representative after pointing out the general dissatisfaction with the lack of institutional support and the absence of clear protocols for locating victims.
The report from the human rights organization indicates that the deployment of the police, military and intelligence forces was primarily oriented toward territorial control and protection of the disaster zone, relegating their direct participation in the initial search and rescue operations.
He also questioned that, to date, the State has not presented a official record consolidated number of missing persons, a panorama that contrasts with estimates from independent initiatives that estimate tens of thousands of citizens with unknown whereabouts.
To date, the official balance sheet issued by the authorities on August 17 lists 6,438 bodies recovered from the rubble and nearly 60,000 homes with severe structural damage on the coastal and island strip of the country, in a healthcare context conditioned by recent financial approaches of Caracas with international organizations in New York.
