Nobel Peace Laureate María Corina Machado missing ahead of Oslo ceremony
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The highly anticipated public return of Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado has been thrown into doubt after the Norwegian Nobel Institute abruptly cancelled a press conference.
The event was expected to mark her first public appearance in nearly a year.
The institute said it had no information about her whereabouts, deepening the mystery around the Venezuelan opposition figure who has been in hiding since early 2024.
Machado was last seen in public on 9 January during a protest in Caracas against President Nicolás Maduro’s third-term inauguration. Her planned press conference in Oslo—usually held on the eve of the Nobel ceremony — had been widely seen as her re-emergence onto the world stage.
Instead, it was first postponed and then cancelled only hours before it was due to begin. A Nobel Institute spokesperson said they were “in the dark” about when or how she might reach Norway.
Machado had previously acknowledged that travelling to Oslo posed significant security challenges.
Her family, however, has already arrived in the Norwegian capital for Wednesday’s award ceremony. Her 84-year-old mother, who has not seen Machado for a year, spoke emotionally about praying for her safe arrival. Machado’s children have also expressed hope for a reunion, though they admit they do not know when it might happen.
Awarded the peace prize in October, Machado was honoured for her decades-long struggle against what the Nobel committee described as Venezuela’s “brutal, authoritarian state.”
In a message on X, she dedicated the prize to the Venezuelan people and to US President Donald Trump, whose administration has backed her and recently ordered a significant naval deployment near Venezuela.
Reports suggest she may already be in Europe, possibly aided by US officials who helped her exit Venezuela via Puerto Rico. Still, with hours left before the ceremony and no confirmation of her arrival, uncertainty continues to overshadow one of the year’s most closely watched Nobel events.