A search was underway yesterday Sunday to find a boat that had left Venezuela for Trinidad and Tobago with at least nine people on board, a source close to the rescue services told Agence France-Presse.
Several boats make illegal routes from one country to another, some 100 kilometres apart, carrying mainly irregular migrants who want to find work in Trinidad and Tobago because of the economic crisis in Venezuela, exacerbated by sanctions - mainly US sanctions - aimed at ousting socialist President Nicolas Maduro from power. Some go there to buy goods and food at cheaper prices.
The missing boat
sailed on Friday and was expected to arrive in Guiria (northeast) on Saturday, according to the French Agency source. A relative of one of the passengers alerted authorities the same day and they began an investigation yesterday.
There was no news last night.
According to a resident in Wiria, the boat was carrying a family who had gone to make supplies in Trinidad and Tobago ahead of Christmas and were returning with "food and toys."
Since 2018, more than 100 people have died in shipwrecks in the zone. In December 2020, around thirty people died when a boat that had departed carrying irregular migrants from Wiria was wrecked.
It is not uncommon for boats to be overloaded and accidents are numerous.
According to figures compiled by the UN, some 5 million Venezuelans (out of a total population of 30 million) have fled that country since 2015. Some 25,000 have chosen Trinidad and Tobago, an archipelago of 1.3 million people, as their destination, where authorities say they have recorded the arrival of 16,000 Venezuelans.
Source: AP-MPA, file photo
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