CARACAS, Venezuela — College students and other protesters took to the streets of Venezuela’s capital Monday, mourning an elderly woman who passed away over the weekend shortly after discovering her son had died while in government detention nine months prior.
The group of several dozen demonstrators, primarily university students, temporarily shut down a major roadway in Caracas while holding Venezuela’s administration responsible for the deaths of both Víctor Hugo Quero, a detainee whose imprisonment was viewed as politically driven, and his mother Carmen Navas, age 82. The protesters displayed a large photograph of Navas while voicing their demands.
“What it stirs up in Venezuelans, in the Venezuelan youth, is rage, man,” student leader Miguel Ángel Suárez said of the deaths.
Navas passed away just 10 days after the country’s prison authorities released a public announcement revealing that Quero had died in July following hospitalization during his incarceration. Officials had concealed this information while Navas spent months searching detention facilities, legal offices and government buildings demanding evidence her son was alive, after his arrest in January 2025.
According to the official government report, the 51-year-old salesperson died from “acute respiratory failure secondary to pulmonary thromboembolism” 10 days following his hospital admission for digestive problems. Authorities claimed they never contacted his family members because he had not supplied emergency contact details.
Human rights advocates, opposition political figures and families of other political detainees immediately condemned the circumstances surrounding both deaths.
“They didn’t die; they were killed!” demonstrators chanted Monday. “Justice for Carmen!”
According to the Venezuelan prisoners’ rights organization Foro Penal, more than 400 individuals remain imprisoned throughout the nation on political grounds.
