Venezuelan opposition leader María Machado returns after months in exile

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has returned home to a fraught political landscape after more than 10 months in exile.

"I am here. With you," Machado wrote on X on Sunday. Her return comes after repeated prior efforts to re-enter the country came to no avail.

In January, a month after Machado left Venezuela on a speedboat under cover of darkness to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, the US seized her opponent, President Nicolás Maduro.

The Trump administration then backed his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, as leader and she was sworn in as interim president, later signing an oil deal which granted very favourable terms to the US.

Machado was photographed on Sunday attending Mass at a church in the Venezuelan state of Lara, surrounded by supporters hugging her and clasping her hands.

She then began travelling to the capital Caracas in a caravan of cheering supporters. More supporters have lined the route of her journey to the capital.

She was photographed smiling as she leaned out of the sunroof of a car as she entered Caracas late on Sunday night.

"Night of reunion in our Caracas. For the reunion of each family, for the Freedom of each political prisoner, for the Freedom of Venezuela," she wrote on X.