One dead, two survive after boat carrying copper sinks off Icacos

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Just days af­ter two Venezue­lan mi­grants, in­clud­ing a six-year-old girl, drowned when an over­crowd­ed pirogue cap­sized in the Colum­bus Chan­nel, an­oth­er il­le­gal sea voy­age has end­ed in tragedy.

A boat al­leged­ly trans­port­ing cop­per to Venezuela sank in rough seas off Ica­cos on Sat­ur­day, leav­ing one Venezue­lan man, Julio Lopez, dead.

A Venezue­lan woman, Nikol Lan­dae­ta, and an al­leged Trinida­di­an smug­gler from Ica­cos sur­vived.

The lat­est tragedy has re­newed con­cerns about the grow­ing num­ber of il­le­gal cross­ings be­tween Trinidad and Venezuela as des­per­ate mi­grants con­tin­ue to risk their lives on over­crowd­ed, un­sea­wor­thy ves­sels.

Mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team (HSRT) led by Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat, Coast Guard per­son­nel and fish­er­men searched the coast­line from Ica­cos to Gal­fa Point, lead­ing to the res­cue of Lan­dae­ta yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Cap­tain Ramb­harat said in­for­ma­tion re­ceived by the team in­di­cat­ed that the pirogue, which was al­leged­ly trans­port­ing a load of cop­per from Trinidad to Venezuela, cap­sized around 6 am on Sat­ur­day just off Ica­cos.

He said the Trinida­di­an cap­tain and a Venezue­lan man and woman ini­tial­ly clung to the ves­sel’s fu­el tank as they drift­ed at sea.

“The cap­tain, at some time, left the two oth­ers with the fu­el tank and be­gan swim­ming. He even­tu­al­ly came ashore near Con­stance Beach in Ica­cos. He told res­i­dents of the in­ci­dent and left the area,” Ramb­harat said.

Hours lat­er, Ce­dros po­lice were alert­ed af­ter a body washed ashore at Ica­cos.

“Po­lice of­fi­cers, to­geth­er with the Coast Guard and mem­bers of the De­fence Force, re­spond­ed and de­ter­mined that it ap­peared to be the body of a Venezue­lan male na­tion­al. HSRT was told by the Venezue­lan mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty that his name is Julio Lopez,” Ramb­harat said.

The Trinida­di­an sur­vivor known lo­cal­ly as D Cop­per man told res­i­dents that rough seas caused the ves­sel to cap­size.

Res­i­dents said the sur­vivor, fear­ful of be­ing ar­rest­ed be­cause of the il­le­gal voy­age, left the area in a black ve­hi­cle be­fore po­lice ar­rived.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said his of­fice had re­ceived re­ports of the in­ci­dent but was await­ing con­fir­ma­tion from in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

“Based on the in­for­ma­tion com­ing in­to my of­fice, there was an in­ci­dent at sea in­volv­ing a ves­sel that sank. There were three peo­ple on board. One reached shore while the oth­er two re­mained at sea,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh said po­lice and the Coast Guard were con­tin­u­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions and he pre­ferred to await of­fi­cial find­ings be­fore com­ment­ing fur­ther on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the sink­ing.

He ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the de­ceased and said the re­peat­ed mar­itime tragedies high­light­ed the dan­gers of il­le­gal trav­el be­tween Trinidad and Venezuela.

Teelucks­ingh urged Venezue­lan mi­grants to use the le­gal fer­ry ser­vice op­er­at­ing be­tween Ce­dros and com­mu­ni­ties such as Tu­cu­pi­ta, Ped­er­nales and Maturín in­stead of re­ly­ing on il­le­gal op­er­a­tors.

He ac­knowl­edged that many mi­grants were act­ing out of des­per­a­tion but called on both Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to in­crease pub­lic aware­ness about the dan­gers of il­le­gal cross­ings.

Teelucks­ingh al­so said there ap­peared to have been an in­crease in il­le­gal move­ment across the Colum­bus Chan­nel since the re­cent earth­quake in Venezuela.

“Based on re­ports com­ing in, we are see­ing ad­di­tion­al chal­lenges. Law en­force­ment has in­creased its pres­ence in Ce­dros, so some of these il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties ap­pear to be shift­ing to oth­er ar­eas along the south-west­ern coast­line,” he said.

He said the Coast Guard, Cus­toms, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force had in­ten­si­fied pa­trols, but de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as “a cat-and-mouse game” with traf­fick­ers con­stant­ly chang­ing de­par­ture points.

The lat­est tragedy comes less than a week af­ter an­oth­er over­crowd­ed pirogue car­ry­ing six chil­dren and 24 adults over­turned in rough seas off Los Iros Beach.

That ves­sel, be­lieved to have de­part­ed Erin Beach, claimed the lives of Venezue­lan mi­grant Ed­win Par­ra and six-year-old Brithanny Lin­neth Yanett León Pala­cios.

Res­cue teams lat­er con­firmed they were the on­ly fa­tal­i­ties be­fore end­ing the search.

The two fa­tal in­ci­dents have in­ten­si­fied con­cerns over il­le­gal mar­itime traf­fic across the Colum­bus Chan­nel, par­tic­u­lar­ly as mi­grants con­tin­ue to flee eco­nom­ic hard­ship and the af­ter­math of the re­cent earth­quake in Venezuela.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ica­cos yes­ter­day, po­lice said they are in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports from Venezue­lan na­tion­als that two ad­di­tion­al Venezue­lans may have been on board the ves­sel. How­ev­er, this could not be con­firmed up to press time.