Masked members of Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro’s security forces laid siege to the Argentinian embassy in Caracas on Saturday, hell-bent on arresting six opposition politicians seeking asylum with a far less dysfunctional South American country, CNN reports.
Pedro Urruchurtu, international coordinator for opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has been holed up in the embassy since March, tweeted Saturday that armed hooded members of the National Police had closed off streets outside the embassy. Drones were hovering over the building and phone signals had been cut off, Urruchurtu wrote. It’s not clear how he otherwise managed to tweet about it without signal. This is the second time Maduro’s regime has threatened to storm the embassy since the rigged July election, the first was back in September when cheated oppo candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had been allowed to flee to asylum in Spain. “I alert the world to what may happen to fellow refugees in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas,” Gonzalez tweeted Saturday.