The Chavista chancellor, Yván Gil, today denounced the “vengeful kidnapping of our team (in reference to the Venezuelan soccer team, Vinotinto), which played an extraordinary game yesterday.” Nicolás Maduro’s minister accused the government of Peru of preventing the refueling of fuel on the plane that was taking his national team back to Venezuela, after drawing 1-1 with the white and red team in a very controversial duel played on Tuesday at the National Stadium of Lime.
“The government of Peru commits a new arbitrariness against Venezuelans,” argued the chancellor, after a match marked by “identity control of foreigners,” as announced by Dina Boluarte’s government, to intimidate Venezuelan emigrants. La Vinotinto had the support of its fans on this qualifying day for the 2026 World Cup thanks to the million emigrants who arrived in Lima fleeing the Bolivarian revolution.
The controversy continued after the match, when the Venezuelan players tried to greet their fans and give them their shirts. Salomón Rondón, one of his stars, did succeed, but a group of Peruvian police prevented his companions from approaching the stands. One of them brandished a baton and hit the most angry players. Several teammates calmed down the most angry ones and the situation ended with applause shared between the players and the Venezuelan public, who maintained an exemplary attitude.
“The Police stopped me, I don’t know what happened, they took out the sticks to hit us, they hit me twice. They broke me a little but nothing serious. These are things that should not happen. The Police also started hitting people,” he denounced more later the defender Nahuel Ferraresi.
Hundreds and hundreds of Venezuelan motorcyclists, most of them food delivery workers, toured the streets of Lima to escort their team’s bus to the hotel. A snake of lights for the visiting team never seen before in the World Cup qualifiers.
“It is at least embarrassing that a football event of such magnitude has been taken as a battlefield to expose the basest passions of anti-Venezuelan xenophobia by a Peruvian police authority,” the Ministry of Popular Power for Human Rights denounced in a statement. Youth and Sports.
After becoming a welcoming land during the administrations of the moderate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Martín Vizcarra and Francisco Sagasti, Peru’s immigration policy began to change with the radical Pedro Castillo and has taken a definitive turn with the current government of Dina Boluarte. At least one and a half million Venezuelans currently live in Peru.
The government has launched an “expedited mechanism for the expulsion of migrants who have entered irregularly or who threaten order or security,” Juanita Goebertus, director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch (HRW), explained to EL MUNDO. .
“This mechanism raises serious doubts about respect for due process and the protection of these people, including possible asylum seekers. It cannot be assumed that in 48 hours the administrative authority will be able to properly analyze the individual situation of the person in question. Furthermore, by giving a period of 3 days to file an appeal against the decision, but which does not suspend the sanction from being carried out, people could be expelled from the national territory and would have to follow the process from outside,” the expert warned. to this newspaper.