(CNN) – The National Institute of Civil Aeronautics (Inac) of Venezuela indefinitely suspended commercial flights to and from Chile, said this Wednesday Aerolíneas Estelar, one of the companies affected by the measure.
The company indicated in a statement that, by order of Inac, the flights were suspended indefinitely.
He added that the suspension will come into effect from the flights scheduled for this weekend and that from this moment on the sale of tickets for its flights between Caracas and Santiago will stop.
The company announced a telephone line, WhatsApp numbers and email addresses for affected customers.
CNN contacted Inac to request information about this decision and the reasons that led to it and is awaiting a response. The institute is part of the Ministry of Popular Power for Transportation.
The Government of Chile reacted to the measure through its Foreign Ministry. In a message sent to the media, the institution noted that “this is a unilateral decision that once again puts the nearly 800,000 Venezuelans who reside in our country in a vulnerable situation. It is an unjustified action and one that we regret.”
This would not be the first time that the Venezuelan Government resorts to suspending flights in retaliation against countries that do not recognize Maduro as the winner of the July 28 elections. The National Institute of Civil Aviation announced weeks ago the temporary suspension of commercial flights to and from Panama and the Dominican Republic. This suspension has not been revoked.
The suspension of flights between both countries occurs a day after, during his speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations, the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, once again questioned the results of the presidential elections in Venezuela that They proclaimed Nicolás Maduro as the winner, without the minutes of the day broken down by voting station having been published so far.
“Chile is especially attentive to the critical situation that Venezuela is experiencing. “We are facing a dictatorship that intends to steal an election, that persecutes its opponents and that is indifferent to the exile not of thousands, but of millions of its citizens,” Boric said.
In addition, he pointed out that the political and economic crisis in Venezuela has expelled more than 7 million Venezuelans from the country, of which about 800,000 are in Chile. “Out of responsibility I must be clear on this point: Chile is not in a position to receive more migration,” Boric concluded.
The Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Yván Gil, also spoke this Wednesday before the General Assembly, where he defended the results of the July 28 elections. “President Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with clear and overwhelming support,” he said.
Chile is one of the countries on the American continent that consider that the true winner of the elections in Venezuela was Edmundo González Urrutia, of the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform.
