The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) is in con­tact with the Venezuela au­thor­i­ties re­gard­ing the five miss­ing Ce­dros fish­er­men.

In a re­lease on Thurs­day night, the Coast Guard said that it was aware of re­ports con­cern­ing miss­ing per­sons aboard pirogue Aman­da, but it was not di­rect­ly con­tact­ed by the fish­er­men’s fam­i­lies.

The re­lease stat­ed, “How­ev­er, it is im­por­tant to clar­i­fy that the TTCG’s Mar­itime Op­er­a­tions Co­or­di­nat­ing Cen­ter (MOCC) was not di­rect­ly con­tact­ed by the fam­i­lies of the miss­ing per­sons. There­fore, re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing in the me­dia in­di­cat­ing that the fam­i­lies con­tact­ed the TTCG and were told that the Coast Guard boats were not work­ing are in­ac­cu­rate.”

The re­lease fur­ther stat­ed that the Coast Guard is in con­tact with the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to seek their as­sis­tance in lo­cat­ing the miss­ing ves­sel and the men.

“We are cur­rent­ly await­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion. The TTCG re­mains com­mit­ted to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all our mariners and is pre­pared to as­sist in any way pos­si­ble,” it said.

The Coast Guard as­sured that they will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly and pro­vide up­dates as they be­come avail­able. When con­tact­ed on Fri­day, rel­a­tives told Guardian Me­dia that they have still not heard from the po­lice nor the Coast Guard, but the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team is as­sist­ing them.

The miss­ing fish­er­men, cap­tain David Seep­aul, 60, his son, Da­vanan, 35, Shi­va “Saucy Boy” Seep­er­sad, 20, Braiy­er Gon­za­lez Ali, 21, and Je­re­mi­ah “Co­co” Pasqual, 19, left Fuller­ton Beach be­tween 4 pm and 5 pm on Sat­ur­day aboard the ves­sel.

They were ex­pect­ed back ei­ther Sat­ur­day night or ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing. The fam­i­lies be­lieve they were fish­ing close to Venezue­lan wa­ters in an area they fre­quent­ed. The Hunters Search and Res­cue Team led by Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat ar­rived at Ica­cos Vil­lage around 6am on Fri­day morn­ing to or­gan­ise a boat to be­gin search­ing for the men.