CARACAS, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's government on Monday denounced the forcible separation of multiple migrant families by U.S. authorities.

At a press conference, Jorge Rodriguez, head of the Unified Command of the Bolivarian Revolution, expressed his outrage at the "kidnapping" of 18 Venezuelan children, demanding their immediate return to their families in Venezuela.

Rodriguez said that while several minors are being held in supposedly safe facilities, their parents have been criminalized and even beaten. He added that some of the adults are being detained at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, despite not having committed any crime.

One particular case involves a one-year-old girl detained in the United States while her mother was deported to Venezuela, he added.

Rodriguez called the practice "an example of barbarism rarely seen in history" and labelled it "a crime against humanity," accusing the United States of violating the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the UN Charter.

"We will not rest ... we will go everywhere we have to go," Rodriguez said, pledging to resort to all international and multilateral mechanisms to secure the return of the children. ■