by Xochitl Campos
Daily Lobo
Sonia Balasch said she is happy to be back in the United States after being stranded in Venezuela for three months.
Balasch said gunmen stole all of her belongings Aug. 26. She said she couldn't get back into the U.S. until now because her passport and visa were stolen.
"I had to go and get another passport, and they told me that I didn't exist in the system," she said. "My name had been erased."
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Balasch, a native of Venezuela, is a graduate assistant in the Spanish and Portuguese department.
She went to Caracas, Venezuela, to visit her mother, who was injured in a car wreck. She said she planned to stay one month. But on her way to the airport, she was stopped by a group of men.
"My brother was driving with father at his side, and I was in the back seat," she said. "A car pulled in front of our car, and four men with guns got out and came over to us. I thought they were going kill my brother and my father."
Balasch said two men got into the car and told them to put their heads to
their knees.
"We couldn't see each other, and they asked us where we were going," she said. "The men ordered us to take off all of
our clothes."
Balasch said she was afraid to tell the men she was heading to the U.S. because they would assume she was wealthy.
"It's a stereotype that if I'm rich, they could get more money," she said. "I only had $20. I didn't have any money."
The men kept asking where the family was headed. Balasch said she told them they were going to Columbia.
Residents of Andean countries do not need visas to travel from one country to another,
she said.
"I was praying to God that they didn't see my visa, and they didn't see anything," she said.
Balasch said that if the men knew she was leaving for the U.S., they would have held her hostage and demanded money from her family, or they might have raped and murdered her.
About three hours passed, and the men released Balasch and her family.
The men stole Balasch's passport, visa and her brother's car. They were forced to walk naked to the police station at 6 a.m.
"One of the hypotheses of the police officers that I met after the incident is that the armed men were police officers," she said. "The support of this is that they acted in a very coordinated way, like professionals."
Balasch is unsure why she and her family were targeted.
Justin Delacour, a teaching assistant in the political science department who studies Venezuelan politics, said the crime could have happened for a number of reasons.
"There is a high degree of crime in Venezuela," he said. "If there is anything to criticize about the Venezuelan government is that it hasn't been very affective in combating crime, particularly in Caracas."
Delacour said Caracas has one of the worst crime rates in the world.
Delacour said Venezuelan bureaucracy is slow, and that would have made it difficult for Balasch to expedite the process of acquiring a new visa.
"There were also a lot of Venezuelans who were attempting to leave Venezuela," he said. "The U.S. has a particular policy that would have made it particularly difficult to leave."
Karina Peña was asked to teach one of Balasch's classes while she was gone.
"At the beginning, I didn't know what happened, but I knew that she had had trouble in Venezuela," she said. "It was kind of a big deal."
Balasch is grateful she made it back safely.
"Thank God now I can talk about that, and I don't cry," she said. "I'm getting strong, I guess."
