Maria Corina Machado Emerges in Oslo After Secret Journey

Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado greets supporters from a balcony of the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway.

• Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado emerged from hiding.
• she appeared in Oslo,climbing barriers outside her hotel to hug well-wishers.
• Machado escaped Venezuela by boat, travelled to the Caribbean island of curacao, and headed to Norway by private plane.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado appeared in Oslo early on Thursday, climbing barriers outside her hotel to hug well-wishers after the Venezuelan opposition figure failed to reach the norwegian capital in time to receive her award at a ceremony held hours earlier.

The 58-year-old engineer had secretly left Venezuela for Oslo in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country and after spending more than a year in hiding.

Machado greeted dozens of people from the balcony of Oslo’s Grand Hotel, where Nobel laureates traditionally stay, waving and singing the national anthem along with the crowd, which waved Venezuelan flags and filmed her with their mobile phones.

Later,Machado came down to the street and climbed over crowd barriers to hug and shake hands with people who had gathered in the cold for the chance to see her.

“After all these months in which she has been in hiding and her life has been in danger, I think seeing her together with the entire Venezuelan diaspora is a pleasure and a reassurance that she is safe, and it is also a way for the Venezuelan cause to stay alive and a way to put more pressure on the regime,” said Diana Luna, a Mexican-German woman in the crowd.

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Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, earlier accepted the Nobel Prize in her name and delivered a speech by her mother in which she said democracies must be prepared to fight for freedom to survive.

Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado greets a supporter outside the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway.

In her speech, Machado said that the prize held profound meaning, not only for her country but for the world.