US officials confirmed to The Washington Post that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado escaped by boat to the Dutch island of Curacao on Tuesday, according to an X post by @AlertaNews24 shared over the 58-minute period ending at 5:45 p.m. UTC on Dec. 10. The post stated Machado's allies prevented news of the trip from becoming public to protect her safety. The route from Caracas to the Venezuelan coast, likely Falcón state, involved dangers amid constant police and military controls, with opponents sometimes receiving connivance from regime members, as reported by the Washington Post. Intelligence reports indicated Machado took refuge in various embassies since going into hiding in August 2024, including the empty US embassy in Caracas, according to the X post. During the hours of her escape planning, US Superhornet fighters from the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier flew over the gulf connecting Falcón and Maracaibo, as reported by El Mundo and cited in the post. This confirmation aligns with a Bloomberg report shared on X earlier on Dec. 10 by @EMPosts, stating Machado received help from Maduro regime members to escape ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, as noted in a previous report ending at 3:46 p.m. UTC.
