Video: These Venezuelan election observers received death threats. Now they’re in hiding.

Anthony is hiding in this Colombian city on the border with Venezuela. He says he was targeted by paramilitary groups called “colectivos,” key enforcers of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, after he volunteered as an election observer for the opposition party. He fled here to Cúcuta, along with these other election workers, all of whom describe receiving similar threats. We agreed not to show their faces or use their full names for their own safety and that of the families they left behind. All of their accounts provide firsthand evidence of a post-election crackdown that occurred largely out of public view. These vote counts that they and other observers collected were made public, showing that opposition candidate Edmundo González actually won the majority of the vote. While many countries, including the United States, have cast doubt on the election results, Maduro continues to claim victory. He and his supporters are now targeting the opposition as terrorists, threatening them with phone messages and showing up at their homes. Anthony worked as a baker in Venezuela. The others, a chef, a salesman and an engineer. The Times reviewed evidence that corroborated their stories of being targeted as election observers. All of the men who were previously targeted for their political activism say the threats felt more brutal and direct after this election. Celso Barbosa himself fled Venezuela six years ago. He says these men were the first group of political exiles he helped escape the country after the July election. Barbosa recently attended a protest here in Colombia calling for Maduro’s resignation. Meanwhile, Maduro has yet to release his election results, and González has now fled the country to Spain after a Venezuelan high court issued his arrest warrant. These men say that if Maduro is sworn in as president in January, others will soon be forced to flee the country as well.