Venezuelan opposition member details harrowing 400-day captivity at UN

Pedro Urruchurtu spoke to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday about what he had endured at the hands of Nicolás Maduro’s regime while being forced to shelter in place for over 400 days. Urruchurtu and four other members of Venezuela’s political opposition were freed in May in a successful U.S. rescue mission.

He and his colleagues were effectively trapped inside the Argentine Embassy in Caracas — where the opposition members fled to, and were sheltered due to the diplomatic status of the embassy. 

The opposition figures were under siege by regime forces who made their lives extremely difficult due to their control of the utilities. Urruchurtu told the council he had endured “five months without electricity, three minutes of water every ten days, rifles pointed at the windows, and dogs trained to bite; only because those in power considered it a crime to direct the campaigns of Maria Corina Machado in the opposition primaries and Edmundo González in the presidential elections. Both won.”

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“Today I am here despite the state, and not thanks to it, because if it were up to it, I would be missing or dead,” Urruchurtu said.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the council that since May 1, 2024, the human rights situation in Venezuela has only gotten worse. The people have experienced “arbitrary detentions, violations of due process and enforced disappearances, amid continued allegations of torture and ill-treatment.”

Türk revealed that his office had documented 32 people — 15 of them adolescents — who reported being tortured and ill-treated in detention. He also noted that 28 people had been subjected to enforced disappearance after the country’s parliamentary elections, which took place in May 2025. He said their whereabouts remain unknown and that at least 12 of them were foreign nationals who “do not have access to consular assistance.”

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“The world must no longer look away from the brutal reality of what the once-beautiful Venezuela has become. Nicolás Maduro and his enforcers are running a criminal narco-terrorist dictatorship that jails political opponents, tortures dissidents, and crushes any hope of free expression. Pedro’s voice today represents the cries of thousands of Venezuelans who remain imprisoned, persecuted or forced into exile, as slaves to the regime,” UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a post on X on May 6 that the opposition members, including Urruchurtu, had been rescued in “a precise operation” and brought to the U.S. A few weeks later, Rubio met with the released opposition members. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that Rubio had commended the Venezuelan opposition members for their “bravery in the face of Maduro’s relentless repression and tyranny.”

Neuer also expressed gratitude for the Trump administration and Rubio’s actions, which led to Urruchurtu’s release.

“Thank you to the Trump administration and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, for their critical role in securing Pedro’s release and the release of his comrades. Once again, proving that strong, principled diplomacy saves lives and advances the cause of freedom for the world,” Neuer told Fox News Digital.