A 71-year-old mother is missing, vanished from a roadside near Caracas, leaving her family gripped by fear and demanding answers. Merys Perfecta Torres de Sequea, the matriarch of a family entangled in Venezuela’s turbulent political past, was last seen traveling with her niece on September 20th.
The circumstances surrounding her disappearance are deeply unsettling. Witnesses report multiple vehicles intercepting their car, and masked men forcibly removing both women. Since then, silence. No contact, no explanation from authorities – only a growing dread within the Sequea family.
Merys’s sons, former Bolivian National Guard soldiers, were previously implicated in attempts to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. In 2019 and 2020, they participated in separate, ultimately unsuccessful operations that shook the nation and drew international attention.
The family now suspects the involvement of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Police and military counterintelligence in Merys’s detention. They believe she is being held as a proxy, a desperate tactic to pressure her sons. This isn’t simply a disappearance; it’s a calculated act, they claim.
“The state has deprived my mother… of her legal rights,” stated Fatima Sequea Torres, Merys’s daughter, now living outside Venezuela. Her voice trembled with anguish, labeling the act an “enforced disappearance,” a crime against humanity. The family’s desperation is compounded by Merys’s fragile health; she requires daily medication for hypertension, arthritis, and chronic back pain.
The case has been brought to the attention of international human rights organizations, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Advocacy groups are echoing the family’s concerns, highlighting the vulnerability of an elderly woman with serious health conditions caught in the crosshairs of political retribution.
The story extends back to 2019, when Merys’s son, Captain Antonio José Sequea Torres, participated in “Operation Freedom,” a daring, though failed, uprising aimed at removing Maduro and installing opposition leader Juan Guaidó. The operation did manage to liberate a prominent political prisoner, Leopoldo López, who subsequently fled to Spain.
A year later, Antonio José was involved in another, even more audacious attempt – “Operation Gideon,” a disastrously planned amphibious assault orchestrated by mercenaries. This “Bay of Piglets” style invasion resulted in deaths, arrests, and ultimately, deepened the political crisis. Antonio José was captured and remains imprisoned in Rodeo 1, a facility notorious for human rights abuses.
Antonio’s brothers, Juvenal and Juven Jose Sequea Torres, faced their own legal battles in Colombia, ultimately accepting plea deals that secured them six-year prison sentences for their involvement in the failed plots. The family is now fractured, with members scattered across borders, united only by their fear for Merys’s safety.
International law explicitly condemns the detention of family members who have not been accused of any wrongdoing. Yet, in Venezuela, over 882 political prisoners are currently held, including 116 women and four adolescents, according to recent reports. Merys’s case underscores a disturbing pattern of state-sponsored intimidation and the erosion of fundamental rights.
The family clings to hope, desperately seeking information and demanding the immediate release of Merys and her niece. Their plea resonates with a chilling urgency: a mother, a grandmother, caught in the relentless grip of a nation’s political turmoil, her fate hanging precariously in the balance.
