Venezuela has announced that it had reauthorised flights carrying migrants deported by the United States, days after suspending them due to President Donald Trump's demand that Venezuelan airspace be considered ‘closed.’
The aviation authority ‘has received a request from the US government to resume flights repatriating Venezuelan migrants from that country to Venezuela’, said a statement from the ministry of transportation. ‘On the instructions of President Nicolas Maduro, this is authorised.’
Trump has ramped up pressure on Venezuela, accusing Maduro's government of being a drug cartel and carrying out military strikes on boats off the country's coast that Washington says were carrying drugs.
Despite the crisis, flights deporting migrants from the United States to Venezuela – a key part of Trump's hardline anti-immigration policies – had continued until the US leader's threat over Venezuelan airspace.
A new flight had been authorised to land in Venezuela today, the transportation ministry said.
‘To date, 75 flights have been carried out to repatriate 13,956 people,’ Caracas said on Saturday.
