Venezuela earthquakes reveal a child protection system unprepared for disaster

By Cristina González y Josué de Freitas
This article was originally published by La Vida de Nos on July 5, 2026. An edited version is republished by Global Voices as part of a content partnership agreement. The report includes field research by Angélica Lugo, Gabriela Rojas, and Mariana Souquett. It is part of the series “The Earthquake Children,” produced by La Vida de Nos in collaboration with Monitor de Víctimas and Tal Cual.
Caribe Residential Tower, in Caraballeda, La Guaira state, is no longer a building. It is now a mountain of shattered concrete, beneath which 13-year-old twins Aron and Aranza Mendoza Orias may still be trapped. The last time anyone heard from them, they were in their apartment with their mother, Yesenia Orias.
That was before the earthquakes. Now, their whereabouts remain unknown.
Ariari Mendoza, Orias’s husband — and the twins’ father — hasn’t stopped searching. He walks through the rubble, asks questions, and digs through debris with his bare hands when necessary. Relatives and friends have joined the effort because government assistance has been limited. When rescue teams do arrive, they often lack the heavy machinery needed to break through the collapsed concrete.
On June 27, three days after the earthquakes, they managed to reach two of the apartment’s rooms but found no sign of the teenagers. Since there was no odor indicating fatalities, they hoped the twins had either escaped or were still alive.
From Caracas, the twins’ 37-year-old cousin, Andrés García, is also searching. His greatest concern is that Aron is autistic. If someone finds him alive but frightened and disoriented, he may not be able to tell them who he is or where he comes from.