Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado made her first public appearance in 11 months early Thursday morning local time, when she waved to supporters at a hotel in the Norwegian capital. after her daughter accepted Nobel Peace Prize in her name.

Machado has been in hiding since January 9, when she was briefly detained after joining supporters in a protest in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. She was expected to attend Wednesday’s awards ceremony in Oslo, where heads of state and her family were among those waiting to see her.

Machado said in an audio recording of the phone call posted on Nobel’s website that she would not be able to make it in time for the ceremony, but that many people had “risked their lives” to get her to Oslo.

Her daughter Ana Corina Sosa accepted the award instead.

“She wants to live in a free Venezuela and she will never give up that intention,” Sosa said. “That’s why we all know, and I know, that she will return to Venezuela very soon.”

ua Zoom interview for CBS News Just hours after receiving the honor in October, the woman known as the “Iron Lady” of Venezuela said it served as a message to Venezuelans that they were “not alone.”

“The world recognizes this great, epic fight,” Machado said.

Attorney General of Venezuela he told Agence France-Presse last month that Machado would be considered a “fugitive” if he left Venezuela to accept the honor.

Machado won the Nobel for “her tireless work to promote democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”