‘Always Being Watched’: Venezuelan Recalls Life Under Socialist Rule

From Caracas to Queensland: a Venezuelan asylum seeker reflects on freedom after Maduro’s capture.

Sarah Machmud says Venezuelans had waited years for the U.S. to take action in her country.Courtesy of Sarah Machmud

Sarah Machmud is a typical Queenslander—she has a passion for food, health and fitness and loves the summer sun—but deep down she longs to return to her home.

The Venezuelan-Australian who arrived as an asylum seeker in 2016 remembers all too well the smothering sense of oppression she left behind in her home country, more than 15,000 kilometres away.