Twelve hours following a clandestine United States military operation targeting Venezuelan leadership, the port city of La Guaira north of Caracas remained shrouded in smoke, its infrastructure scarred by precision airstrikes. The mission, designed to apprehend and extract President Nicolás Maduro from his stronghold, represents an unprecedented escalation in the protracted geopolitical standoff between Washington and Caracas.
Eyewitness accounts describe scenes of devastation and collective trauma. Alpidio Lovera, a 47-year-old resident, recounted the terrifying sequence of events: “First we saw the flash and then the explosion,” prompting him to flee with his pregnant wife to higher ground. The force of the strikes deformed shipping containers, blew out windows of public buildings, and ripped roofs from residential houses, though official reports noted no casualties in the area.
The psychological impact on residents was profound. Linda Unamuno, 39, broke into sobs describing how the blast destroyed her roof, initially mistaking the attack for another natural disaster reminiscent of the catastrophic 1999 landslide that claimed thousands of lives. “I saw the fire from the airstrikes. It was traumatizing,” she stated, adding she “wished it on no-one.”
While US President Donald Trump publicly confirmed Maduro’s capture with an image of the handcuffed and blindfolded leader aboard a US warship, skepticism persists among segments of the Venezuelan population. Pensioner Alirio Elista, 68, whose water tank was damaged in the strikes, dismissed the news as “fake” and criticized those celebrating the intervention. His weekly pension of under half a dollar “doesn’t pay for anything,” he complained, highlighting the desperate economic conditions that have plagued the country under Maduro’s rule.
The operation culminates years of US sanctions and alleged coup plots against Maduro, whose administration presided over rampant inflation and critical shortages of fuel, medicine, and basic foodstuffs despite Venezuela possessing the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Trump’s vision of US oil companies revitalizing Venezuela’s crumbling infrastructure contrasts sharply with local expectations of a long recovery. As Elista predicted: “We’ll need at least 15 years to get back to where we were.”