Venezuelans Struggle to Recover from Earthquakes
Gabriel Aguirre / World BEYOND War
VENEZUELA (June 27, 2026)— On June 24th, a double earthquake struck Venezuela, affecting the states of La Guaira, the Capital District, Falcón, Miranda, and Aragua. The two earthquakes registered 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale.
These events have so far left more than 1,000 people dead, 3,360 injured, and the UN estimates that nearly 50,000 people are missing. This tragic natural disaster has forced the mobilization of all available resources and prompted a request for international humanitarian aid to address this emergency promptly.
Members of our WBW chapter in Venezuela, aware of their duty and humanitarian mission, dedicated themselves to assisting those affected by the earthquake, delivering food, medicine, medical supplies, and water in La Guaira state, which was the hardest hit.
This situation reminds us of the need to continue insisting on the lifting of all sanctions against the country, which greatly hinder efforts to address this humanitarian catastrophe. If the funds withheld from Venezuela internationally are not released, the humanitarian emergency the country could face will be of enormous proportions.
The US government has promised military aid, but what Venezuela needs is not military assistance, but humanitarian aid and support. The vast resources that countries allocate to military spending should be used to address this type of tragedy. Let us unite our people in solidarity, demand the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela, and raise our human conscience to continue defending just causes.
We call on the U.S. government to abide by the rule of law and the will of the U.S. public, and to leave behind its long history of interventions, overthrows, and coups, which has included efforts to overturn the government of Venezuela many times, including for much of the past decade.
Trump has now bombed Venezuela, kidnapped its president, and claimed that he would run the country. This is utter destruction of any rule of law.
The U.S. government had been openly offering $50 million for the arrest of the president of Venezuela, under a false narrative, even as it invites the prime minister of Israel to speak in Washington, despite an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. The U.S. military has sent war ships toward the coast of Venezuela, leading that nation to make preparations for war.
At the same time, the U.S. government is illegally sanctioning Venezuela, and sanctioning countries that trade with Venezuela. A recent study found these sanctions to have been the principle cause of the worst depression without a war in world history and tens of thousands of deaths.
Basta! We call on the U.S. government to retire the Monroe Doctrine, shut down the Southern Command, close its bases, cease training Latin American forces in violence, and instead strive to learn something from Latin America about the ways of peace and disarmament.
The U.S. government has a hard enough time installing decent law abiding individuals in its own offices in Washington, D.C. It needs to focus on that problem and halt all efforts to deprive other nations of the right to govern themselves.
