‘Phantom Migrants’: Maduro Regime Says Venezuelan Migrant Crisis Is Fake

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro smiles while giving a speech during the Bolivarian All
FEDERICO PARRA/AFP/Getty Images
Christian K. Caruzo

The socialist regime of Venezuela denied the existence of the country’s migrant crisis, describing it as “invented,” during a dialogue at the United Nations on Monday.

In reality, upwards of six million people have fled Venezuela as part of the world’s most severe migrant crisis, most of them attempting to reach neighboring South American countries or the United States.

The regime of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro was invited to participate in an interactive dialogue with the United Nations’ Human Rights Council and the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela. It used the occasion to threaten those who vote in favor of renewing the Mission with “political and diplomatic” measures.

A large group of mostly Venezuelan migrants stream across the border near Eagle Pass, Texas. (Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

A large group of mostly Venezuelan migrants stream across the border near Eagle Pass, Texas. (Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

The dialogue held between the U.N. Human Rights Council and the Independent Fact-Finding Mission served to formally discuss the Mission’s latest report on Venezuela, which describes how the socialist regime has carried out heinous crimes against humanity to suppress any and all opposition to Maduro’s rule through acts of torture, sexual violence, and other inhuman and degrading treatments.

Despite the Mission’s findings, the Maduro regime maintains a seat on the Human Rights Council set to expire at the end of 2022.

The Maduro regime’s permanent envoy to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Hector Constant Rosales, “soundly” rejected the report “in form and substance.”

“The so-called Fact-Finding Mission had surpassed itself, creating a fiction about the country, aiming to please the international media circus whose vultures just wanted to feed and not reflect what was really happening,” Constant Rosales stated.

He continued by asserting, “Everything was invented – millions of phantom migrants, so-called terrorist camps, and even a parallel president, whose existence was improbable,” downplaying the existence of both the Venezuelan migrant crisis and Juan Guaidó, the country’s legitimate president, who wields no power in the country whatsoever. 

Venezuelans have been fleeing en masse from their nation’s authoritarian socialist regime over the past decade. Contrary to the envoy’s claims of “phantom migrants,” it is estimated that, as of August 2022, more than 6.8 million Venezuelans — one-fifth of the nation’s entire 30 million population — have fled the country. Venezuela’s migrant crisis has now surpassed Syria’s and is only rivaled by Ukraine’s.

On Saturday, during the 77th United Nations General Assembly, the Maduro regime’s foreign affairs minister read a letter signed by the socialist dictator in which he described the migrant crisis as “induced,” blaming the sanctions imposed upon his regime by the United States and international community as the cause while asserting — without evidence — that 60 percent of Venezuela’s migrants had returned to the country.

Following the Maduro regime’s line denying the Venezuelan migrant crisis, United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) official and alleged drug kingpin Diosdado Cabello mocked the migrant crisis during the ruling PSUV’s weekly address, downplaying the situation of the Venezuelan migrants that have crossed through the dangerous Darien Gap, located between the borders of Colombia and Panama.

“It’s like this story of migration in the Darien jungle. The Darien has better Wi-Fi than several areas of Venezuela. They broadcast live from anywhere in the Darien. And one says: how is that?” Cabello said.

The U.N. Human Rights Council will vote next week to renew the mandate of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela. Hector Constant Rosales, on behalf of the Maduro regime, threatened the members of the Human Rights Council who vote in favor of renewing the Mission with “political and diplomatic” measures.  

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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