Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Thursday recounted her “extraordinary” reunion with her three children in Oslo, where she emerged from months in hiding after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado arrived at the Grand Hotel in the Norwegian capital early Thursday after slipping out of Venezuela, where she has been in hiding since last summer as she challenges the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro.
She had tried to be there on time to accept the prize Wednesday, but her daughter had to stand in her place.
Asked by reporters about her first hours in Oslo and meeting with her children, the laureate quickly became emotional.
“I couldn’t sleep last night, going over and over again that first instant when I saw my children,” she told a press conference alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
“For many weeks I had been thinking of that possibility and which one of them I would hug first. And … I hugged the three at the same time and it has been one of the most extraordinary spiritual moments of my life,” she continued.
Her three children — Ana Corina, Henrique, and Ricardo — all live abroad, and according to her former campaign manager she has not seen them for more than two years.
On Wednesday, Ana Corina, 34, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize and delivered Machado’s acceptance speech.
Machado has largely been in hiding after she accused Nicolas Maduro of stealing Venezuela’s July 2024 election, from which she was banned — a claim backed by much of the international community.
She last appeared in public on January 9 in Caracas, where she protested Maduro’s inauguration for his third term.
She said the United States helped her leave Venezuela, and thanked those who she said risked their lives to help get her there.
