(La Grita) Found safe and sound overnight from Thursday to Friday, 16 missing people had cut themselves off from the world to achieve a spiritual retreat in a mountainous area in western Venezuela while media and social networks speculated about their spell.
Posted at 4:41 p.m.
The group, made up of two families of devout Catholics, left on August 22 from La Grita, a town in the state of Tachira (border with Colombia), famous for its Christian pilgrimage. An important research device had been deployed on Tuesday.
“They were on a family retreat […] deeply religious people […] we can assume that it was a spiritual retreat,” Juan Escalante, mayor of the municipality of Jauregui, to which La Grita belongs, told reporters, surrounded by members of the research team.
Without news and unable to communicate with them, the father of two of the six children in the group, including a 20-day-old girl, had filed a complaint, said a source from the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigation Corps (CICPC). ).
Some relatives have also denounced the fact that some of the children were taken away without authorization.
The group had not taken mobile phones from the farm where they were found in Paramo de la Negra, in Tachira’s neighboring Merida state, several hours’ drive from La Grita, saying they did not want be disturbed during the retreat.
“The phones were left [en ville]. There was no communication of any kind, a complaint was filed and the search began,” summed up the mayor. “They have already returned to their homes […] All this has generated a series of speculations. It is important that we welcome these families with open arms,” he added.
The 16 people were brought back in the early hours of Friday morning to La Grita, where they underwent medical and psychological examinations.
Major General José Martinez Campos, commander of the Tachira Defense Zone, welcomed the location in “record time” of the missing.
More than 160 police, military and civil protection agents had been deployed.
The case, which has fascinated the country for several days, has been the subject of countless speculations on social networks and in the local media.