Caracas (EFE)
After a similar visit to Cuba, which ended on Tuesday, Torres today led a first public act in the coastal state of La Guaira, which consisted of a meeting with dozens of Canarians who live in this region, close to Caracas and located in front of the Caribbean Sea. , where he recalled that many of his compatriots arrived in Venezuela last century to carve out a future.
“Many ships arrived to have a better future here (…) we have come to meet and so that we can talk with canaries who arrived in Venezuela, and learn about their needs,” Torres told reporters, after a tour of the place where the ship was taken. activity, a Canarian entity in La Guaira.
He explained that the autonomous government that he presides over has increased cooperation for Canarians living in Venezuela, going from 2019 to the present, from 600,000 euros allocated to food aid for 3,000 people, to 1.6 million euros to help feeding 6,500 people.
In addition, aid for medicines rose from 200,000 to 600,000 euros, thus increasing the number of beneficiaries, going from 1,500 to 4,500, also since 2019, or the agreement with the Fundación España Salud -which serves low-income Spaniards in Venezuela- , for which the Canarian Government contributes 1.1 million euros, compared to 600,000 euros four years ago, when the organization served 845 Canaries, while it currently serves 1,211.
One of those beneficiaries is Rosario Díaz, an 83-year-old woman who arrived in Venezuela in 1945 from Buenavista del Norte, in Tenerife, and who feels as much a Canary Islander as she does Venezuela, the country where she survived the biggest trough of her history in 1999, which resulted in some 10,000 deaths.
The octogenarian told EFE that she was happy with Torres’s visit -as well as with her previous stop in Cuba, where she has relatives-, and hopes that her presence can translate into the decentralization of the medical consultation service of the Spain Health Foundation, from the one who is a beneficiary, since she must travel to Caracas (30 kilometers) to be attended by specialists.
Torres highlighted the woman’s testimony and highlighted “the strength” of her and of the 55,000 Canarians who live in Venezuela, a nation that, he said, is part of the “continental island” that has “roots here and there.”
The president stressed that “there have been magnificent moments and hard moments” and that “circumstances have changed a lot” in the last 70 years, but, above all, it is important to “recognize the work that canaries do” outside of Spain to support each other and in favor of the union of the autonomous community. EFE
