«What I’m witnessing is something historic, epochal, I can’t believe I’m actually experiencing it. I am the same age as the dictatorship, 27 years old. I don’t know anything else. And experiencing it as a journalist has always been what I wanted, which is why I didn’t leave Venezuela, because I had to document, assist, observe, but always with my feet on the ground.” These are the words of a Venezuelan journalist from Caracas who collaborates with one of the periodicals considered critical of both the Maduro government and the opposition. The comments of the reporter, who prefers to remain anonymous, come immediately after the US raids that took place last night in Caracas, bombings that hit several military objectives of the South American state, including the air base La Carlota, and which also affected the coastal and internal part of the city.
The Colombian president Gustavo Petro publishes a list of further targets achieved by the US military attacks on
«The attacks, between the areas of Caracas, La Guaira and Aragua, occurred around 2am this night. About twenty explosions were recorded, strong and incisive. I had just gone to bed after delivering some pieces, so I was calm and relaxing. Like me, many other people who celebrated the end and beginning of the year in recent days, or who were in Caracas for the Christmas holidays, who stayed on the beach or on the street. In short, these attacks came in a context of normal life in which there were commercial activities and open markets, the army on the streets to enforce public order, more police than expected, as always during the Christmas period”, says the journalist, “At first I heard an intense sound coming from afar, followed by strong vibrations, so much so that I thought it was an earthquake. I got up, took the phone in my hand and opened my editorial office, in the meantime I began to hear the planes, I hadn’t yet understood whether they were planes or helicopters, but I felt that they were above us. Terrifying, this moment was terrifying.
After a short while the explosions began. One, of strong intensity, was the one that made everything shake, and we felt it because it happened in the mountain area of El Volcanan area where there are antennas, where people go to admire the view, to train. I was there on December 30th, so to speak, and I found everything as it always was, the military stationing was the ordinary one. The other explosions, those of Fuerte Tiuna and della Carlota we heard them further away from where I live, in the east part of the city.”
However, the military targets also affected civilians, as always happens in every air raid, in fact, the journalist continues to tell in detail: «I don’t know the reason for this bombing, perhaps the United States sees this area as being of strong interest, and it is probably so because this area, together with the other mountain panoramas, is representative of Caracas. I only know that colleagues who live right near El Volcán were terrified because the missiles that fell there caused the windows of their houses to break. And at this precise moment in which I am writing, since I have been awake, the planes have not stopped flying, which is why I am and we are very tried, and this is why I prefer to remain, for now, anonymous because as a journalist I am sincerely very afraid. What seems very absurd to me about what happened is that people were celebrating Christmas, they were on holiday, they never expected something like this, and instead there were injuries, I hear children crying in the street and from the windows. I can already imagine that people will flock to the shops to buy supplies and this will create panic. We don’t know what will happen in the next few hours, there is news to be confirmed. We know with certainty that we will have to take to the streets soon and understand what is happening to tell the story.” With these words, the Venezuelan journalist concludes her moving testimony.
