by Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Des­per­ate to es­cape Venezue­lan pi­rates, two kid­napped fish­er­men jumped off their ab­duc­tor's boat on Mon­day night but on­ly one of them man­aged to make it home safe­ly.

Bruised and trau­ma­tised Key­on Alexan­der, 29, of La Union Road, Erin ar­rived home around 3 pm.

He had spent the night swim­ming des­per­ate­ly and bawl­ing for help from pass­ing boats.

How­ev­er, it was hours lat­er that he man­aged to climb on top of an off­shore oil in­stal­la­tion where he rest­ed for a while be­fore be­ing picked up by a pass­ing boat oc­cu­pied by lo­cal fish­er­men.

Alexan­der's boat cap­tain An­tho­ny George, 32, of Guayagua­yare re­mained miss­ing up to late Tues­day and Coast Guard of­fi­cers con­tin­ued search­ing the seas with the hope of find­ing him.

Dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Alexan­der's sis­ter Adan­na Ahey ex­pressed grat­i­tude that God had saved her broth­er's life.

"The in­side of his legs grate up be­cause he had to climb up the plat­form. His feet bruised and bloody. His clothes dirty. He said it not nice out there. These Venezue­lan men des­per­ate," Ahey said. Alexan­der went to the Cap-de-Ville po­lice sta­tion half an hour af­ter he ar­rived home to re­port the kid­nap­ping to the po­lice.

Ahey said Alexan­der was not fond of go­ing to the sea af­ter they lost their broth­er Ed­mund Charles fol­low­ing a boat crash last year. How­ev­er, she said he could not find work so out of des­per­a­tion he de­cid­ed to make the trek to the sea.

Ahey said while fish­ing aboard a pirogue named Good One they were ac­cost­ed by a gun­man who or­dered them in­to an­oth­er ves­sel.

The Venezue­lan pi­rates then con­tact­ed George and Alexan­der's fam­i­ly. They de­mand­ed US$5,000 for George and $US10,000 for Alexan­der. Ahey said she did not know why her broth­er was worth more.

The call was made to a nephew and the fam­i­ly was told the fish­er­men will be killed if they did not pay. The Venezue­lans al­so placed the men's phones in a rice buck­et and sent a pho­to to the fam­i­ly as proof that they were cap­tured.

Ahey said they were not wealthy and could not af­ford a US$10,000 ran­som.

She said Alexan­der has been fish­ing since he was 12 but since Charles's death he has been try­ing to make ends meet by do­ing con­struc­tion.

Key­on's wife Abi­gail Alex­is de­clined to com­ment yes­ter­day say­ing she did not have any de­tails to share.

Po­lice said yes­ter­day that the mat­ter was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. A se­nior po­lice source said they were pur­su­ing an al­le­ga­tion that some­one from the area was li­ais­ing di­rect­ly with the Venezue­lan pi­rate gang to kid­nap fish­er­men.

Re­cent kid­nap­pings

Jan­u­ary 12- Ken­rick Mor­gan, 17 and his cousin Kendell Singh, 24, were kid­napped while fish­ing in the sea off Gran Chemin, Moru­ga. The kid­nap­pers de­mand­ed a ran­som of US$40,000 which was lat­er changed to US$20,000 and five iPhones. They were al­so re­leased.

Feb­ru­ary 8- Af­ter pay­ing a US$90,000 ran­som, which in­clud­ed 10 cell­phones, gold jew­ellery and sev­er­al boat en­gines, five fish­er­men - Lyn­ton Manohar, 35, Ja­son O’Bri­an, 38, Jagdesh Jude Jaikaran, 16, Bran­don Ar­joon, 28 and Ricky Ramb­harose, 35, from Morne Di­a­blo, Pe­nal re­turned home af­ter be­ing kid­napped for more than a week.