When the first blast rocked his military base in Caracas, 18-year-old Saul Pereira Martinez sent his mother a simple message: “I love you. It’s begun.”
It was the night of January 3, and US forces were invading Venezuela The capture of the then president of the country, Nicolas Maduro, on the orders of President Donald Trump.
Pereira finished guard duty at Fort Tiuna, where Maduro was sheltered that night. However, he would not survive the attack.
Natividad Martinez, his mother, visited the cemetery where her son’s remains are buried on Sunday, remembering the night that happened, and still in shock.
The last time he spoke to Saul was at 2:00 in the morning. He reiterated that he loved him, and told him to take care of his two brothers, aged two and nine.
Pedro MATTEY /AFP via Getty Images 
Mr Trump has repeatedly proclaimed the success of the stunning operation to kidnap Maduro, boasting that there were no casualties.
But at least 83 people died in the operation, 47 Venezuelan soldiers and Cuban security personnel 32According to the Ministry of Defense of Caracas.
“You can’t come to my country and kill people like that,” Martinez said. “Because it was a clean operation (they say). It wasn’t clean. Do you know how many people died?”
“Brave Man”
When the attack began, Martinez, 38, heard explosions and started screaming, worried for her son’s safety, her husband said.
After talking to him on the phone, he fell to the floor screaming his name, she said.
“I told him to be calm, we don’t know what’s going on,” said Saul’s stepfather, who asked not to be identified because he works as a police and government security official.
He believes Saul died because his unit was spending the night in the security perimeter around Maduro, which made them a target for US forces.
On Sunday, Saul’s parents were joined by his girlfriend and friends at the cemetery south of Caracas.
Saul had just completed his initial training in the Honor Guard in December and was studying at the military academy.
They brought flowers and, to the rhythm of old salsa music, the family cried, remembered anecdotes and toasted the young soldier they remember as a “brave man”.
Saul joined the military following the path of a childhood friend, who was at La Carlota Air Base during the US attack and was wounded in the leg.
His mother applauded the decision, having previously been concerned about the course of her son’s life.
Saul, says Natividade, “went from partying, going here and there, doing nothing at home” to studying, cleaning the house during visits and acquiring discipline.
“All Humans”
Despite the massive U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean, and despite Mr. Trump’s threats against Maduro, Martinez’s family did not expect things to turn out so badly.
“The president didn’t always stay in the same place,” explained his stepfather, and the government maneuvered to mislead even the State security forces about Maduro’s whereabouts.
U.S. forces found Maduro because of inside informants, the stepfather said.
“My son’s death was a side effect of that infiltration,” he said.
Earlier this month, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said Maduro had no warning The US was closing in until moments before American forces arrived.
“Nicolás Maduro met some big Americans wearing night glasses three nights ago,” Hegseth said. “He didn’t know they were coming until three minutes before he got there. In fact, his wife said, ‘I think I hear planes outside.’ They didn’t know. You know why? Because every part of that chain was doing its job.”
Hours after the attack, Natividade took food for Saul to Fort Tiuna, according to their weekly schedule.
He found only silence.
A few hours later, when the names of the fallen began to circulate, he went to the battalion and stood there, demanding answers.
“And they should have told me,” he said, looking at the cement grave where mourners wrote Saul’s name in yellow, blue and white flower petals.
His son, like other soldiers, was honored by the government, which promoted the posthumous.
Natividade said some did not seem to mourn the deaths because of the political polarization that has divided the nation under Maduro’s rule, and that of Hugo Chavez before him.
“Those who died are also human beings. They are all Venezuelans. From one side or the other, they are all human beings, they all have people who mourn,” he said.
Shaken but still stoic, Natividade said she was proud of her son.
“He died for his country,” he said. “Despite what they say, to me, my son was a patriot, and that’s what matters to me.”
Meanwhile, the US has had strikes in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific He killed more than 100 people In ships that Washington says were transporting drugs from Venezuela. Legal experts and members of parliament critical of the strikes have argued that it is a military action against suspected drug-smuggling boats. legally questionable.
Last month, a The Colombian was killed in a US military attack On a ship in the Caribbean filed a complaint United States v. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).