This Wednesday morning, a flight of the Return to the Homeland program (Plan Vuelta a la Patria) arrived from the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, with a total of 76 Venezuelans on board who have eagerly been awaiting a chance to return home to families and loved ones in Venezuela.
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The Conviasa flight operated between Guayaquil's International Airport José Joaquín Olmeda and Venezuela's Maiquetía "Simón Bolívar" International Airport.
The nationals who requested their return had found themselves stranded due to the health contingency measures decreed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while others were in a situation of urgency and vulnerability for reasons related to health, labor, and economic hardship.
"There is the Plan Vuelta a la Patria, this year more than 200 thousand Venezuelans have returned. To all of them, including those who have returned, we want to wish them a very happy Christmas, in this spirit of reunion."
The Return to the Homeland (Plan Vuelta a la Patria) program was created by President Nicolas Maduros Moros, and aims to offer support and encouragement to migrants who voluntarily express their desire to return to Venezuela. The Bolivarian Government, in response to the situation of vulnerability or economic difficulty suffered by Venezuelan citizens living abroad, has made a logistical, social, diplomatic, and economic effort to offer a hand in solidarity and a support tool to all for their return and reintegration into the Venezuelan society. More simply put, the Bolivarian government believes citizens have a right to return home.
The Return to the Homeland Plan—unprecedented in the world-—has guaranteed the safe repatriation of more than 21 thousand Venezuelans from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Cuba, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Mexico; and recently, in times of pandemic, special flights were made available from Martinique, Bonaire, Spain, Italy, and Belarus.