‘I carry sorrow in my heart.’ Children in Venezuela are struggling after the earthquake
11-year-old Emma says the earthquake destroyed her school and soon she will have to say goodbye to all her friends because her mother wants to leave Catia La Mar, in the Venezuelan state of La Guaira, for fear that the Earth will shake again.
Emma and her family are currently living in a camp set up in Catia La Mar. Here, donated tents are set up in a parking lot – the asphalt torn by deep cracks – next to a sandy beach where young boys surfed the waves under the blue sky and relentless Caribbean sun.
At the request of the NGO Save the Children, which provides aid to the camp, CBC News has agreed not to use the real names of the children interviewed for this story. Each child chose which word they wanted to use.
Emma’s two stuffed animals remain in her bedroom in the family’s damaged building – a white and pink rabbit she used to wash regularly and a purple dinosaur – but she says she won’t be able to see them again until her family is able to return to collect their belongings.
“I feel bad for all the people who have lost family members like me. It’s really sad,” said Emma, who lost her grandfather during the disaster.
“No one likes to lose a family member or loved one.”
More than 600,000 children were affected by the twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, and many parents are still searching for their missing children.
‘I want to sleep in my bed’
Save the Children offers daily programs at the camp for a changing number of families ranging from 30 to 60.
“We are talking to children who have lost family members, who have lost friends,” said Aisha Majid, a spokeswoman for the aid group.
A powerful, twin earthquake on June 24 killed, injured and displaced tens of thousands of Venezuelans. More than 600,000 children were affected by the earthquake in six states of Venezuela, according to UNICEF data.
“I didn’t like living through this incident because I almost lost my mother because it was moving so much,” said 11-year-old Nazareth.
“I thank God because my family is still alive.”
Nazaretha said she finds it difficult to stay in the camp where she sleeps in a tent with her mother, father and older sister who turned 18 on Wednesday.
“I want to sleep in my bed. I don’t want to sleep almost on the floor, I just have a mattress,” he said. “I don’t want to live this experience anymore.”
‘You think you’re going to die’
He doesn’t know if he will ever be able to return to the room where he lives with his sister because there are deep cracks all over his building.
“I’m afraid to go in there because it’s still moving, it’s not stable,” he said. “We’ll have to wait for people to go there to decide if it’s good to live in or not.”
Nine-year-old Leo said he was sleeping when the earthquake struck. He said his bed started shaking and he thought it was his little sister jumping on it.
“I was going to ask him why he was jumping but he wasn’t jumping but everything was shaking. Then the walls cracked,” he said.
As Leo left the family’s first-floor flat with his sister, mother and grandmother, he left behind his beloved stuffed animal, the lion he cuddled every night before bed.
“I was crying, I was really scared,” she said. “You think you’re going to die, you won’t be able to see your mother anymore.”
Now, they all live in a tent with their father.
“I carry sorrow in my heart,” he said.
Mothers want sons
In the western municipality of Playa Grande in La Guaira, two mothers are searching for their missing 10-year-old boys after they were seen running in fear down the street from their tower block when the earthquake struck.
Carmona Marquez Betsabeth and Rosana del Carmen Carvajal sleep in a tent pitched in a small clearing across from their dilapidated building. It is among the few on the block that are facing demolition.
They often stay together, making phone calls, trying to find clues in the search for their sons. Sometimes they just sit quietly.
Betsabeth’s son, Paul Junior, was playing with Carvajal’s son, Emmanuel Abraham, at Carvajal’s house when they decided to go out. Then the earthquake started.
The place was full of smoke and dust, said Betsabeth. “You didn’t see anything.”
Mothers have checked hospitals and clinics but nothing. These boys are among tens of thousands of people still missing after the earthquake.
Betsabeth said her son had a mobile phone with him, but when he dialed the number, the woman answered and said her uncle grabbed it on the side of the road.
The woman did not continue to provide information, but Betsabeth said she filed a complaint with the police to trace the phone, which was recently found in Caracas, 40 kilometers to the south.
There were also reports that a local woman collected lost children after the earthquake, and even though the mothers said that this led to death, they still filed a complaint with the police.
“Maybe someone said to them, ‘Come with us, we will get you out of here,’ and they took them to another place,” said Betsabeth.
“God is great and powerful and he is with them, he takes care of them,” he said. “We have faith that our sons are good.”
