María Corina Machado: Opposition leader says she feared for her life upon leaving Venezuela

Machado, 58, arrived in Norway early Thursday morning, after there had been much speculation about his departure from Venezuela to. Until now she has reiterated to the press that she will not give any details so as not to compromise the people who helped her on her journey.

“I am not going to give any details, I am not going to make any comments on the logistical part of this process,” he said. But in “the personal and human part, I can tell you that they were very intense hours where there were moments that I know there was real risk.”

He added that when he was preparing to leave his country, where he has lived in hiding since August 2024, he said to himself: “It will be what the Lord decides.”

“And (God) wanted me to be here and to be able to hug my family and relatives of many political prisoners who arrived in Oslo,” he added.

A “terrifying” journey

The Nobel Peace Prize winner would have undergone a long and “terrifying” sea crossing in the middle of the night to leave Venezuela, Bryan Stern, who runs a nonprofit rescue organization, said in an interview Thursday on CBS News.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Machado left the outskirts of Caracas disguised and with a wig on Monday morning and arrived at a fishing village on the coast after crossing ten military checkpoints.

From there, on Tuesday she made a dangerous journey through a rough Caribbean Sea, transferred overnight from a small fishing boat that had lost its GPS beacon to another vessel to sail to Curacao.

According to the WSJ, the US military was informed of the crossing, which since September has launched attacks in the area against alleged drug boats that left at least 87 dead.

Neither Machado nor his team want to reveal how long their stay in Norway will last or their next destinations.

Among his immediate priorities, Machado said he wants to take the opportunity to spend time with his three children, his mother, his three sisters, and hold some meetings with his colleagues abroad.

He ruled out that Venezuela is in a moment of stagnation to get out of a crisis, fueled by the unprecedented US military deployment in the Caribbean.

“I would say that today we are in any position but stagnation. The situation is moving and is accelerating with each passing day, both due to pressure and the internal reactions of Venezuelan society,” he said.

Machado maintains that Maduro stole the July 28, 2024 elections and that his candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia was the winner.

For her, any negotiation must involve this recognition of the electoral result. “The regime still has that option. What we have said is that Maduro is going to leave with or without negotiation,” he said.