Locals are still sorting through the fallout of the American attacks on Venezuela.
[After the bombs and no one knew what was going on, our correspondent is at a beach club outside Caracas] Then my sister got a call: It was the mother of one of my nephews’ schoolmates, also staying at the club. “Go to the mini-market,” she said. “It’s open. We should all buy food.” It was already 4 a.m., but after dozens of calls and messages, it felt like only minutes had passed.
Then, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. He announced that Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, the country’s authoritarian leader and his wife, had been “captured and flown out of the Country.”
And then the crowd gathered in the queue — this sea of people coiling and gossiping outside the mini-market — started shouting and celebrating too. A young woman in pajamas, with teary happy eyes, walked up and down the line announcing, “Trump just said they took Maduro.” A man pulled out a bottle of prosecco and began passing it around, pouring it into small cardboard coffee cups as people toasted. A woman called her relatives abroad, part of Venezuela’s 8 million-strong diaspora, to announce they would soon meet again in Venezuela. But even in the middle of the euphoria, another question began to surface, whispered and then spoken aloud:
“Okay, but then who’s in charge now?”
By 8 a.m., the line had barely moved. With the people we’d met queuing, we started taking turns holding our spots. There wasn’t much left anyway: lots of water, cartons of eggs, endless snacks and chips.
But reality was starting to come into focus. First, a statement, read by a pro-government journalist on VTV, the state channel, looped over and over. Then an audio message from Vice President Delcy Rodríguez rejecting what she called a “kidnapping” and demanding proof of life of Maduro. Then a video from Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino. Then Diosdado Cabello — the interior minister, overseer of the regime’s sinister security apparatus — surrounded by agents on the streets of Caracas, calling for calm and rejecting the intervention.
Maduro was gone, but the regime was still, more or less, intact.
“They took the dumbest one,” a security guard told us, as celebration curdled into worry. “They left us with the most toxic one,” he said, referring to the interior minister.
The coastal towns on the drive back to Caracas were empty, save for long lines of people outside supermarkets and pharmacies. We passed the port of La Guaira, where we saw warehouses blown apart, fences charred and twisted and a large cloud of smoke still rising from the site of the American strike.
As we drove up towards Caracas, soldiers — visibly tense, suspicious, scared — had blocked the highway with concrete barriers, leaving only a single lane open. And inside one of the tunnels in the hillsides before the city, one entire lane was occupied by tanks.
Unlike the euphoric crowds of the Venezuelan diaspora that gathered in cities like New York, Buenos Aires, Miami and Bogotá — part of the nearly eight million migrants and refugees who fled a humanitarian collapse, massive economic contraction and authoritarian rule under Maduro — there were no public celebrations in Caracas. Here, the constant, ingrained, fear of repression and reprisals by the regime prevailed. The regime might be decapitated, but it was still very much alive.
“I think it’s alarming he is saying he is keeping the oil,” a female friend said. “Whatever,” a male friend said. Other groups are buzzing by the second. Trump then lambasts María Corina Machado, the highly popular Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader. The group chats explode. “Maybe he doesn’t know who she is,” a young woman said. “Maybe he is mixing Delcy with María Corina,” others suggested, trying to find meaning in the sudden reversal of sympathies from the Trump administration.
That day, I avoided leaving the house. Colectivos — pro-government urban militias armed with assault rifles — tightened their grip. Reports spread of their checkpoints on highways and across parts of the city, allegedly searching phones for “incriminating” messages. A new state-of-emergency law declared that anyone who had “supported” the operation could be arrested. That same day, 14 journalists, almost all from international outlets, were detained, only to be released later that night.
On the radio, only classical music played: no journalists, no commentary, no pop music, just long stretches of symphonies.
On Thursday, finally, the release of political prisoners was announced — apparently thanks to a push by the Trump administration, who said in exchange it would cancel the possibility of a second round of bombings. In WhatsApp groups and across social media, optimism surged at the prospect of seeing around 1,000 Venezuelans unjustly imprisoned finally set free. But after the hours-long frenzy — after alleged lists with hundreds of people, rumors, and names of well-known detainees said to be walking out — by Friday morning only nine had actually left their cells. The process is fragile; disappointment can kick in at any moment.
Still, the buzz continues in chats, conversations and social media posts alike: optimism, for now, holds.
