Venezuela has its own rafters and dozens have already disappeared into the sea – 26/04/2019

In a phenomenon reminiscent of Cuban emigrants in precarious boats bound for Miami or refugees, diving into the Mediterranean in an attempt to reach Europe, Venezuela has more and more its own "chevrons". And the balance is not good.

The disappearance of at least 24 people in the wreckage of a ship with Venezuelan emigrants trying to reach Trinidad and Tobago shows that "If there are no legal routes, there will be more people using more dangerous routes"said Friday a spokesman for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

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The event took place on Wednesday night, "This illustrates the dangers of irregular departures of people trying to move from one country to another", said UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch at a press conference in Geneva.

Venezuelan MP Robert Alcalá said that in the boat were traveling "more than 30 people" of whom 25 boarded the ship in the eastern town of Güiria and the others embarked illegally in the Río Salado area, near this city, according to the survivors of the incident.

Alcalá also reported that fishermen had found in the sea the body of a 16-year-old girl who was boarding the small boat. Among the survivors are Francisco Martínez, 22; Yilmary Lezama, 26 years old; Angelica Mata, 24, and Yureidis Merchan, 23, managed to escape by holding gas cans and parts of the boat because the boat was not carrying a lifebuoy, according to the information from a local maritime rescue organization.

Venezuelan authorities have not commented on the incident so far.

Alcala said nine occupants of the boat had been rescued by fishermen from the area and the rest of the pbadengers, mainly women, are still missing. The survivors were taken to Guiria hospital.

Dozens of relatives of the missing remained agglomerated in the port of Guiria while waiting for information. As night fell, some of the boats participating in the search operations suspended operations due to the danger of the area, said the opposition MP.

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On the reasons that led this group of Venezuelans to go illegally to the Caribbean island, Alcalá said that the majority "seeks to go to Trinidad because of the economic situation of the country"hit by seven-digit hyperinflation and a severe recession that has lasted for more than five years.

Balseros, a phenomenon born of the crisis

Venezuelan congressmen denounced last year that several hundred Venezuelans emigrated to Trinidad and Tobago to flee the crisis in the country of South America and that some of them were arrested for illegally entering the Caribbean island. According to UN estimates, more than three million Venezuelans have left the country because of the crisis.

According to the journalistic archives, the first case of Venezuelan chevrons to public status dates from 2016. A person died trying to reach the island of Aruba. a shipwreck in the middle of the closure of the maritime and air borders, unilaterally decreed by the Nicolás Maduro regime to the three Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, for smuggling of food and other goods

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In 2017, the ship Rosa María was shipwrecked in Caribbean waters and two people died. The specific operation of this company goes through "coyotes", people who act effectively traffickers they make people from Mexico to the United States. According to data collected in 2018, on the coast of the state of Falcón, they charged 100 USD per person, and they could earn up to one thousand dollars for a trip of 40 nautical mileswhich is about 74 kilometers.

UNHCR spokesman Baloch immediately recalled an incident that occurred last January, when a small boat, with about 20 Venezuelans on board, sank off the coast of the Caribbean island of Curaçao. . At least four occupants perished. The boat left illegally from the Venezuelan population of San José de la Costa, in the western state of Falcón, bound for Curacao and was shipwrecked after hitting rocks near the entrance of a lagoon in an area called Koraal Tabak.

Between 40,000 and 60,000 Venezuelans emigrated to Trinidad and Tobago in the aftermath of the economic and political crisis in your country, according to the spokesperson for UNHCR.

They represent a small part of the more than 3.7 million people who have left the country in recent years. The spokesman added that the four people saved – although some sources say nine – have returned to Venezuela.

Source: AFP, AP and EFE