THOUSANDS marched in Caracas on Thursday demanding the return of the country’s kidnapped president and his wife.

President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were abducted by US forces on January 3 in an overnight raid that saw 83 people, 32 of them Cuban soldiers, killed.

The demonstration, called by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), called for “respect for our sovereignty and the immediate release of the presidential couple.”

It followed a briefing to the US Senate by Washington’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, in which he threatened Venezuela with further attacks should it defy US instructions.

PSUV mobilisation secretary Nahum Fernandez declared: “We denounce their vile kidnapping and tell the world: we want them back! Maduro, hold on! The people support you!”

Mr Fernandez said the PSUV was consulting “social movements, political organisations, grassroots leaders and the people” with an aim toward “permanent mobilisation” against external threats.

Venezuelan legislators were simultaneously opening a second debate on the Organic Hydrocarbons Law, which further opens the country’s oil sector to foreign investment.

Though the Venezuelan state retains majority stakes in joint “productive participation contracts” — first set up in 2020, and which included agreements with foreign firms including the US oil giant Chevron even before Mr Maduro’s kidnapping — and continues to own all Venezuela’s oil deposits, the reform has been dubbed a privatisation by critics.

The government’s supporters, who include Mr Maduro’s son Nicolas Maduro Guerra, say the law provides a way to maintain majority state ownership while facilitating “crude oil marketing in the context of unilateral coercive measures,” and is a continuation of the kidnapped leader’s own policy.