A year under siege: Meet the Venezuelan leaders trapped in an embassy

Each morning Magalli Meda savours the sunrise. She wakes early, sips her coffee and breathes in the fresh aroma of mangoes hanging from a nearby tree.

A symphony of animals — squirrels, macaws and roosters — provides the soundtrack for the start of her day, as the dark silhouette of Caracas’s best-known peak, Cerro El Avila, looms on the horizon.

The sights and sounds are a daily solace she’s found amid the bleakness of her confinement.

"It’s something the regime hasn’t been able to take away from us," Meda said.

For a year, Meda and four other members of Venezuela’s opposition coalition — Pedro Urruchurtu, Omar Gonzalez, Humberto Villalobos and Claudia Macero — have been trapped in the Argentine embassy in Caracas, fearing repression on the other side of its walls.

Thursday marks the first anniversary of their confinement. Since March 20, 2024, their world has been limited to the 3,850 square metres of the diplomatic residence.

They can venture outside into the garden or onto the balcony, but no further. Outside the tall white gate, Venezuelan authorities patrol the street, and there is surveillance perched in nearby buildings.

They aren’t allowed visitors, water is scarce, and with limited electricity, much of their food has spoiled.

Stepping outside the embassy would mean certain arrest. The Venezuelan government has accused them of crimes such as treason and conspiracy — charges they deny.

Instead, they say they are being targeted for their opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a leader accused of human rights abuses including arbitrary detention and torture.

"The regime long ago turned this embassy into a prison,” Meda said. “We aren't asylum seekers. We’re hostages.”

Meda remembers the last sunrise she enjoyed outside the embassy.

She had woken early to attend meetings with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to discuss the Venezuelan government’s escalating persecution — and decide who would represent the coalition in the upcoming presidential election.

The government had already banned Machado from running, despite her landslide victory in the opposition’s primary.

Then, news arrived that changed everything. Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab had appeared on television to announce arrest warrants for a string of opposition members — and Meda’s name was on the list.

“We had to run, hide and take shelter. It was a brutal situation,” said Meda, who was Machado’s campaign manager during the election. She spoke to Al Jazeera through written correspondences sent electronically.

“I will never forget that call to my husband to give him the news,” she added.

Two of her colleagues had already been detained that day. In a viral video, Dignora Hernandez, the opposition’s political secretary, could be seen screaming for help as agents bundled her into a silver vehicle.

Meda and the others had to act fast. In the past, opposition members had sought refuge within the confines of embassies, taking advantage of an international treaty — the 1954 Caracas Convention — that allows diplomatic missions in Latin America to grant asylum to individuals facing political persecution.

Additionally, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations prevents the host country’s authorities from entering the premises without prior permission.

In Meda’s case, it would be the Argentine embassy that would provide the crucial refuge. Its government had long been critical of reported human rights abuses under Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and it offered Meda and five others asylum in the embassy residence.

At first, Meda and her colleagues not only found physical safety within the embassy walls but also a space to continue their work on the presidential campaign before the 2024 election.

But a year on, the group’s situation has become more precarious — and Maduro is still in power.

After the July 28 vote, Maduro claimed victory, despite published voting tallies that indicate he was trounced by the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez.

In December, the United Nations Human Rights Committee opened an investigation to analyse evidence that the vote was rigged. It ordered the Maduro government to refrain from destroying any election tallies while the probe is ongoing.

After Argentina refused to recognise Maduro’s contested election victory, its diplomats were expelled. Argentina transferred control of the embassy to Brazil, but the diplomats of that country have been unable to enter the premises, blocked by local authorities.

Today, five opposition members remain alone inside the empty embassy.

Venezuelan intelligence and armed forces are stationed on the street outside. Security officials have seized nearby homes, and those inside the embassy say the state electricity company came to take the fuses from the electricity box, leaving them with only a generator for power.

Human rights groups have condemned Venezuela for violating international rules on asylum, including the right to safe passage.

Carolina Jimenez Sandoval, president of the Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy group based in the United States, described the situation as a “siege”.

“One purpose is to break them psychologically — to make them feel that it is better for them to leave the embassy and then let the Venezuelan security forces detain them,” Jimenez explained.

“By keeping the building or the diplomatic mission under constant siege and cutting electricity and water, the Venezuelan government shows how willing it is to break international rules to achieve its own purpose.”

At first, Meda was one of six opposition figures in hiding in the embassy.

Among them was Fernando Martinez Mottola, a former transport minister, who spent nine months in the embassy before negotiating his exit with Venezuelan authorities in December.

He died in February at age 70, reportedly from a stroke.

“Fernando's death marked us all forever,” Meda said. “We lived with him for nine months, seeing his dreams and fears firsthand.”

For Meda, it was a reminder of the fragility of life and their situation. “I miss living: sharing everyday life with my family and friends. It hurts a lot to see my family suffer.”

Even simple pleasures have been denied to those inside the embassy.

Omar Gonzalez, a former congressman and opposition leader, celebrated his 75th birthday earlier this month inside the diplomatic residence. His family had tried to send him a selection of food and a birthday cake, but they were confiscated by police. Even the delivery driver was briefly detained.

“It was a heartbreaking moment that summed up the reality of our situation here; small joys are often cut short without warning by the agents of tyranny. Despite this, I try to keep my spirits high,” he wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

But in the isolation, Meda explained that the group has “become a family”.

Pedro Urruchurtu — the international coordinator for the opposition group Comando ConVzla — is reflective, meticulous and organised, she said. Meanwhile, Claudia Macero, a journalist, channels her determination and energy through music.

“She sings like an angel, and this is also something which they [the Maduro government] can’t take away from her,” Meda said.

She describes Humberto Villalobos as the inventor, fixer and cook, each day preparing lunch for the group with whatever ingredients they have available. He planted seeds in the garden — but due to a lack of water, the soil has now dried up.

Water in the area is delivered by truck, but deliveries to the embassy are sporadic and the state restricts the amount of water supplied to the building.

“But Humberto hasn't lost hope of seeing a sprig of basil or oregano appear,” Meda said. “He has an innate talent for seeing the glass half full.”

But Urruchurtu said he and the others continue to struggle with the isolation. In a WhatsApp audio message, he explained he had taken comfort in reading Stoic philosophy.

“One day, you’re simply taken from your home, and that’s it — you don't go back,” Urruchurtu said.

“That kind of displacement is incredibly difficult, made even harder by the fact that our families are so far away. It’s all very complicated.”

Jorge Olavarria de Halleux, Meda’s husband, keeps a tally of the number of days he hasn't seen his wife. They have been married for more than 30 years, and he told Al Jazeera she is the love of his life.

Despite talking to her once or twice a day, he still worries about the scars this situation might inflict on them both.

"I ask myself: Am I going to change with this? Is she going to change? Will I recognise her?” he said.

Some of his good friends haven’t called him in months. Jorge suspects they are afraid that the Venezuelan government might find them guilty by association — even though he insists he, his wife and his friends have done nothing wrong.

“I think they've erased me from their lists, from their WhatsApp, because I am a danger to them,” he explained.

Their daughter Eugenia Olavarria, who lives in Spain, hasn’t seen her parents since January 2024. But she understands her mother’s actions as a mark of resilience and sacrifice.

“You know, the leadership that we see in Maria Corina? Like, all this strength she shows on the outside? Well, my mother has been the strength and the structure inside, holding people together,” Olavarria said.

She clings to the phone calls she manages to have with her mum when they talk about what they have been up to and how they’re feeling.

“Knowing her, I know she shields me from some of it. I have to find ways in myself to accept things and know that my mum is strong enough to handle whatever is happening to her.”

But the family has grown frustrated at the lack of international action to secure Meda’s safe passage out of Venezuela.

While a host of countries, including the US, have rejected Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election as illegitimate, diplomatic action has remained tepid. And opposition figures like Meda feel abandoned.

“Despite everything, we're still here hoping that international diplomacy will serve as more than just a statement,” Meda told Al Jazeera. ​​”We are hostages of a regime that has crossed all red lines.”

Phil Gunson, a senior analyst at the nonprofit Crisis Group, said “limited engagement” with the Maduro administration seems to be the strategy for much of the international community.

That includes the administration of US President Donald Trump, who previously had a fiery relationship with the Venezuelan leader, even offering a $15m bounty for his arrest.

“The opposition's external allies are rather at a loss as to how to deal with the situation now that the electoral route seems to have been largely blocked,” Gunson told Al Jazeera.

“There has been no return to the policy of diplomatic isolation and maximum pressure — despite recent moves by the Trump administration.”

Meda, however, holds onto the hope that someday soon she’ll watch the sunrise in freedom.

“Venezuela will be free,” Meda said, “and after everything it has been through, it will be time to rebuild it.”