'I carry sadness in my heart.' Venezuelan children struggle in aftermath of earthquakes

xi year-old Emma says the earthquakes ruined her schooltime and presently she'll feature to say goodbye to all her friends because her mother wants to move away from Catia La Mar, in the Venezuelan state of La Guaira, over fears the Earth will shake again.

Emma and her family are currently living in a camp set up in Catia La Mar. Here, donated tents are pitched across a parking lot — the asphalt riven by deep cracks — next to a sandy beach where young boys surfed through waves under blue skies and a relentless Caribbean sun. 

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Two of Emma's favourite stuffed animals remain in her bedroom at the family's damaged apartment building — a white and pink bunny she washed regularly and a purple dinosaur — but she says she won't be able to see them again until her family manages to return to retrieve their belongings. 

"I am sad for all the people who lost family members like me. It's really sad," said Emma, whose grandfather died during the disaster. 

"Nobody likes to lose a family member or someone they love." 

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Save the Children provides daily programming at this camp with a fluctuating number of families that remains that ranges between 30 to 60. 

"We speak to children who've lost family members, who've lost friends," said Aisha Majid, spokesperson for the aid group.

The powerful, twin earthquakes on June 24 killed, injured and displaced tens of thousands of Venezuelans. More than 600,000 children were impacted by the earthquakes across six Venezuelan states, according to UNICEF data.

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"I didn't like living this experience because I almost lost my mother because it was shaking so much," said 11-year-old Nazareth. 

"I thank God because my family stayed alive."

Nazareth said she finds it hard to live in the camp where she sleeps in a tent with her mother, father and an older sister who turned 18 on Wednesday. 

"I want to sleep in my own bed. I don't want to sleep almost on the floor, with just a mattress," she said. "I don't want to live this experience anymore." 

She doesn't know if she'll ever be able to go back to the bedroom she shares with her sister because there are deep cracks throughout her apartment building. 

"I'm still scared to go in there because it still moves, it's not stable," she said. "We have to wait for people to go there to decide if it's good to live in or not."

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Nine-year-old Leo said she was sleeping when the earthquakes hit. She said her bed started shaking and she thought it was her younger sister jumping on it. 

"I was going to ask her why she was jumping, but she wasn't jumping, but everything was shaking. And then the walls cracked," she said. 

As Leo ran out of the family's first-floor apartment with her sister, mother and grandmother, she left behind her favourite stuffed animal, a lion that she hugged every night before going to sleep.

"I was crying, I was really scared," she said. "You think you are going to die, not be able to keep seeing your mama." 

Now, they all share a tent with her father. 

"I carry sadness in my heart," she said. 

Further west in the Playa Grande municipality of La Guaira, two mothers search for their 10-year-old boys who vanished after they were seen running in fear down the road from their apartment tower when the earthquake hit.

Carmona Marquez Betsabeth and Rosana del Carmen Carvajal sleep in a tent pitched on a small open area across from their crumbling building. It's among several in this block facing demolition. 

They often sit together, making calls, trying to find leads in the search for their sons. Sometimes, they just sit in silence. 

Betsabeth's son, Paul Junior, was playing with Carvajal's son, Emmanuel Abraham, in Carvajal's apartment when they decided to go outside. Then, the earthquake hit. 

The area was filled with smoke and dust, Betsabeth said. "You couldn't see anything."

The mothers have checked hospitals and morgues to no avail. The boys are among the tens of thousands of people still missing in the aftermath of the quakes.

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Betsabeth said that her son carried a cellphone, but when she called the number, a woman answered and claimed her uncle had picked it up on the sidewalk.

The woman provided no more information, but Betsabeth said she filed a police complaint to track the phone, which was recently located in a Caracas neighbourhood about 40 kilomtres south. 

There were also reports that a local woman had rounded up missing children in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, and though the mothers say that led to a dead end, they still included the information in their complaint to police.

"Maybe someone told them, 'Hey come with us, to get you out of here,' and they took them to another location," said Betsabeth. 

"God is great and powerful and is with them, taking care of them," she said. "We have faith that our sons are OK."

Reporter

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