Zaida Martinez stood at the gates of a notorious prison outside of Caracas, anxiously awaiting news of her son.
The 39-year-old, a janitor in a private school, was snatched from his workplace in the middle of the night more than a month ago, by masked men dressed in black, carrying guns and driving a police car.
"He has disappeared," Martinez said outside El Helicoide prison, which lies west of Venezuela's capital.
"I say forcibly disappeared, because it is known that a police force took him."
In the days after Venezuela's interim government promised to free a "significant number" of political prisoners, families gathered outside El Helicoide, waiting for news of their loved ones.
Many remain, camped outside the prison in the hope that a son, husband or brother will be the next to walk free.
El Helicoide — a striking, spiral-shaped fortress — is the headquarters of Venezuela's intelligence service and is widely regarded as a torture site.
Martinez said the disappearance of her son filled her with a sharp sense of loss and fear.
Her son had health problems, she said, including high blood pressure and thyroid issues, but his medication was left at the school where he worked. His documents, mobile phone, and motorcycle were all missing.
She had received only fragments of information about why her son was arrested. She says Venezuela's Judicial Police told her they could not give further details because his case involved alleged political terrorism.
"I don't know how to explain it. It's not that there isn't food, it's that I can't sit down at the table and eat a proper meal," she said.
"Because I don't know where my son is."
For years, the Venezuelan government has denied holding people for political reasons, despite extensive evidence to the contrary.
But last week, after a brazen US military operation that removed Nicolás Maduro from power, the remnants of his regime pledged to release a "significant number" of prisoners in an effort to show it was promoting peace.
For the purposes of the regime, it appeared to work. US President Donald Trump, who claims the US is running Venezuela from afar,? described it as a "very important and smart gesture".
On Truth Social last weekend he said Venezuela had "started the process, in a BIG WAY".?
But leading prisoner rights organisation, Foro Penal, said while about 72 prisoners had been freed, about 800 were still being held on political grounds.
Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, said prisoners would continue to be released.
"Crimes related to constitutional order, hate crimes, violence and intolerance are being evaluated [for planned releases]," Ms Rodríguez said.
But some families of those who have been detained for years are fast losing hope.
UN reports ongoing disappearances and torture
Ms Rodríguez has claimed hundreds of prisoners have been released, but the government has not provided an official list. She also claimed the releases had begun when Maduro was still in power.
The UN's Venezuela Fact-Finding Mission, which tracks human rights abuses, recently estimated there were 800 political prisoners in the country.
By Monday, local time, it appeared only about 50 had been released, the mission said.
"This falls far short of Venezuela's international human rights obligations," it said.
At the same time, government-backed groups had been "patrolling cities, intimidating the population and carrying out searches and phone inspections" before detaining more people.
In various reports, the UN paints a picture of Venezuela's secretive and arbitrary system of searching and detaining anyone deemed a threat to the regime.
Arrests have often been carried out by hooded individuals who don't show arrest warrants or explain why someone was being detained.
In some cases, people were dragged from their homes into unmarked vehicles. In others, they were photographed with "incriminating items" that were not theirs.
The mission has also documented instances of torture with beatings, suffocation with plastic bags, and electric shocks to the feet and genitals, sometimes used to extract information about opposition groups, election workers, and vote counters.
Families beg for proof of life
While high-profile prisoner releases have made headlines, other ordinary citizens remain locked up with no foreseeable way out.
Angela Crespo's husband has spent almost six years in prison, and for more than six months, she's had no communication with him.
Her husband was accused of participating in Operation Gideon, a failed 2020 attempt by dissident Venezuelans and members of a US-based private security firm to infiltrate Venezuela and train citizens to overthrow the Maduro government.
He was in Venezuela's National Guard, she said, but was not involved in the operation.
The 25-year-old was one of many Venezuelans who have set up camp outside El Helicoide. She had a message for Venezuela's new leader.
"I beg [Ms Rodríguez] to please have compassion for all these detainees. Please release them."
Until August last year, Ms Crespo would bring her husband food and medicine, but he was moved to a military facility called Fort Guaicaipuro and since then, she's heard nothing about him.
"We went there, and they wouldn't even let us near the gate," she said.
"They treated us badly. They told us ... yes, they were there, but we had to leave."
Maria Marquez's son was also accused of being part of Operation Gideon. Her family said the military linked him to the operation after he requested discharge from the National Guard.
She hadn't seen her son in six years, and life without him was too painful to describe. Her two granddaughters regularly asked for their father.
The family didn't have the resources to hire a lawyer or travel eight hours, each way, to the prison every month.
Her son was moved from El Helicoide to El Rodeo prison on the outskirts of Caracas in August and has not been seen by his family since. Authorities wouldn't even provide proof he was alive.
"The other night, about six in the evening, they told us [people could be released]," Ms Marquez said.
"I borrowed money here and there. I said, come rain or shine, I'm going to pay it because if they're going to release him, I want to be there when he gets out."
Marquez took a US$160 taxi to get to the prison, which she could only afford by paying the driver back in instalments.
"He's innocent of everything, just like several others [in] there," she said.
She begged Rodríguez to at least tell people whether their loved ones were alive.
"As a mother, I ask her from the bottom of my heart to release all the political prisoners."
"We need at least some proof of life… It's been almost six months since those people there have had any kind of visit, nothing at all."
No information for families
Jenny Quiroz said her partner, Humberto, was taken from his pharmacy business in November and brought to a police station.
"They didn't tell us why — only that he had to answer some questions," she said.
She said that Humberto has never participated in anything in which he openly expressed a political view. Nonetheless, she later heard he'd been taken away because he was linked to a WhatsApp group where people were speaking out about the government.
"That's all unofficial. Officially, no police officer has told us why he was taken," she said.
"Unofficially — because everything here is unofficial, because they never give accurate information — they say he is here."
The announcement that political prisoners would be released came from Jorge Rodríguez, the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Delcy Rodríguez's brother.
Yenise Carrion, whose husband and stepson were taken by police in November, said he had not kept his promise.
"I'm asking him to have mercy on us all and keep his word. He made a promise. Very few prisoners have actually been released," she said.
The women keeping vigil outside El Helicoide were holding on to the hope their loved ones could be released next.
In a country where many people have little to get by on, travelling to the prison, especially for people outside Caracas, is not easy.
Local woman Angelica and her daughter were among the supporters outside El Helicoide.
Angelica doesn't know any of the women waiting, but brought them food and faith bracelets as gifts.
"Maybe they should be a little more aware and have a little more humanity, a little more heart" she said of the authorities.
"We are all human beings, and we all deserve equal rights."
Additional reporting by in Washington DC
with Reuters
