Published on February 4, 2026
Thousands of people marched in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, demanding the release of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Kidnapped by US forces A couple on a bloody night raid.
“Venezuela needs Nicolas!” At Tuesday’s demonstration, the crowd chanted “Gran Marcha” (The Great March).
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Thousands of people waved signs in support of the kidnapped president, and many wore shirts calling for the couple’s return from detention in US prisons.
“The Empire has kidnapped them. We want them back,” declared a banner carried by the marchers.
Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the detained president’s son and a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, addressed the crowd from a podium, saying the January 3 kidnapping of his father by US forces “will forever be a stain on our faces”.
“The soil of our homeland was defiled by foreign forces”, said Maduro Guerra, the night his father was kidnapped by US forces.
The march, called by the government and involving many public sector workers, stretched for hundreds of meters with trucks blaring music.
Local media outlet Venezuela News said the march was part of a “global day of action” to demand the couple’s release. Demonstrators across the world showed their solidarity by demonstrating under banners with slogans such as “Bring them back” and “Hands off Venezuela”.
The international event drew voices from “various ideological tendencies”, who agreed that “the arrest of President Maduro and Cilia Flores is a clear violation of international law and a dangerous precedent for the sovereignty of nations”, the news outlet said.
“We feel confused, sad, angry. There are so many emotions,” said Jose Perdomo, a 58-year-old municipal employee who marched in Caracas.
“Sooner or later, they will have to free our president”, he said, which he also supported Venezuela’s interim leader, Delsey Rodriguez.
Rodriguez has walked a thin line since taking over as acting president, trying to placate Maduro’s supporters in the government and accede to demands placed on Caracas by US President Donald Trump.
Trump has said he is willing to work with Rodriguez as long as Caracas complies with his demands, particularly those taken by the United States. Control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
Striking a conciliatory tone with Washington and promising reforms and reconciliation at home, Rodriguez has already freed hundreds of political prisoners and opened Venezuela’s nationalized hydrocarbon sector to private investment.
Earlier on Tuesday, hundreds of university students and relatives of political prisoners also marched in the capital, demanding Rodríguez’s immediate approval of an amnesty law that freed prisoners from the country’s prisons.
The bill on loan waiver is yet to come to Parliament.