How Carmen Navas became a symbol in the fight for Venezuela’s disappeared political prisoners

‘All I need is proof of life for Víctor Quero, my son,’ Carmen Teresa Navas would explain to the press over and over since February 2026, accompanied by dozens of other mothers, wives, and sisters who have made camp in front of detention centres in Venezuela since January. At 81 years old, she looked fragile and exhausted by time, grief, and mistreatment, but when she spoke, she was firm and assertive: ‘My son was kidnapped. He was forcibly disappeared. This is the state’s responsibility, and I just need proof that he is alive.’

But Carmen Navas did not enter the Venezuelan public consciousness in May 2026, and her search did not begin there. For 16 months, she searched relentlessly for her son across at least 21 detention centres, two courthouses, one morgue, and three public offices in and around Caracas. She also sought help directly from the Public Defenders' office. She moved from prison to prison carrying documents, photographs, and questions that authorities refused to answer. At least 12 times, she went to Rodeo I — one of Venezuela’s most feared prisons, and the place where her son was later confirmed to have been held. 

Each visit ended the same way: silence, denial, or bureaucratic evasion.

On 7 May 2026, Navas finally learned the truth: her son had died nearly a year earlier while in state custody, reportedly from a stomach illness. Authorities stated that he had not provided family contact details and no one had requested an official visitation, so the penitentiary system buried him without notifying anyone. 

Alfredo Romero, director of Foro Penal and a lawyer that has dedicated his life to the defense of politically persecuted cases, condemned the official version released after Quero’s death was confirmed. 'Víctor Quero died while he was disappeared,' Romero said on a social media video. 'The Prison Ministry says he did not provide family information, but his mother went many times to Rodeo I, and they denied knowing his whereabouts. I feel a deep outrage tonight. It feels like a slap in the face against the families of the detained, human rights defenders and Venezuela as a whole. '

The Long Trail of Contradictions 

The last time Navas saw her son, Víctor Hugo Quero, was on 31 December 2024. He was detained days later, on 3 January 2025, according to lawyers handling the case. Stefanía Migliorini, legal coordinator for Foro Penal, told the press that Quero was targeted under a pattern of physical profiling linked to his appearance. Quero, a 51-year-old informal worker, had been walking through Plaza Caracas carrying a box of chocolates he intended to give his mother as a New Year’s gift when he was stopped by security forces.

Quero, who was nicknamed 'the Russian' inside Rodeo I prison, was arbitrarily grouped into a criminal case alongside detained foreign nationals, despite no evidence linking him to any international network.

His detention coincided with an official narrative promoted by the government about an alleged 'international conspiracy.' Just three days after Quero’s arrest, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced that more than 120 foreigners had been detained for alleged 'terrorist and destabilising acts.' Rights groups later argued that Quero had effectively been swept into that narrative because of his appearance rather than any proven conduct.

The Venezuelan state’s official statements on the Quero case have been marked by contradictions and unexplained inconsistencies. According to the government’s account, Quero died on 24 July 2025. Yet three months later, on 24 October 2025, Venezuela’s Ombudsman’s Office formally confirmed to his mother that he was being held at Rodeo I prison, even though Carmen Teresa Navas had repeatedly visited the facility and had consistently been told that her son was not there. 

The confirmation was recorded in an official document, even though authorities still refused to provide proof of life or authorize visitation rights. Months later, however, the Interior Ministry’s statement revealed that by the time that document was signed, Quero had already been dead and buried for three months.

The contradictions did not end there. In March 2026, judicial police summoned Navas for an interrogation that lasted more than five hours, informing her that the investigators assigned to the case had been replaced. Then, on Sunday, 4 May, the newly appointed Ombudswoman Eglée González Lobato met publicly with the elderly woman and promised institutional action.

'This Ombudsman’s Office has now formally received Mrs. Carmen Teresa’s case,' González Lobato said. 'We want to assure her that institutionally we will activate mechanisms and channels so that there is a verifiable response, and so that the State addresses her case.'

But just two days later, another irregularity emerged. The court handling Quero’s case rejected an amnesty request filed by his mother as part of a broader amnesty initiative that had mobilised thousands of Venezuelan families with relatives imprisoned, under investigation, or subjected to restrictive judicial measures. 

That same Thursday, Navas was summoned once again to the Ombudsman’s Office. According to journalist Maryorin Méndez, officials there informed her of her son’s death and then escorted her to the site where he had supposedly been buried. The grave bore only a sheet of paper identifying two bodies. One of them could correspond to Quero, but even there, another discrepancy appeared: the handwritten date of death read 27 July 2025, three days later than the date officially announced earlier that week.

'Quero was never guaranteed the right of defence, something we now know is extremely common in Venezuela,' Romero said. 'Trials, judges, and officials are all involved. They are responsible for this long list of human rights violations.' 

The accumulation of inconsistencies, shifting narratives, and systematic denials has prompted loud denunciations by lawyers and human rights organisations that the Venezuelan state is concealing more than administrative negligence.

One Mother’s Search, A Country’s Pattern 

The organisation Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón reports that at least 27 people have died in state custody in Venezuela over the past decade. None of those deaths, the group says, has been investigated under standards capable of establishing the full truth or ensuring accountability. The human rights organisation also documented at least 21 ongoing cases of enforced disappearance or unknown whereabouts linked to state detention practices in recent years.

While Navas’s search was relentless and widely documented, she always stood alongside many other women still searching for proof of life from their loved ones. In 2024 and 2025, enforced disappearances became an increasingly common feature of arbitrary detention in Venezuela. During the wave of more than 2,000 post-electoral arrests in 2024, many detainees disappeared for days or even months, deepening the scale of irregularities and secrecy surrounding the detentions.

Carmen Teresa Navas became an emblematic figure not only because of the tragedy she endured, but because she transformed grief into public testimony. At more than 80 years old, she turned her body into protest, her voice into accusation, and her persistence into evidence against silence and abuse.

In a country where fear, invisibility, or resignation are systematically imposed on families, she insisted on naming her son, demanding answers, and refusing to accept disappearance. Her search came to symbolize the struggle of thousands of Venezuelan families confronting a system accused of making people vanish not only from prisons, but from public record, memory, and truth.