RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Two more bod­ies from Venezuela's Delta Amacuro ship­wreck have sur­faced, bring­ing to eight the num­ber of peo­ple con­firmed dead.

Venezue­lan me­dia re­port­ed on Tues­day that ex­cept for the sev­en pas­sen­gers who were res­cued by a com­mer­cial ship op­er­at­ing in the Bo­ca de Ser­pi­ente (Snake's Mouth) last Thurs­day, there have been no fur­ther sur­vivors.

And as the days go by, the chances of any­one else be­ing found alive grow slim.

Venezuela's Tane Tanae Delta re­port­ed on Tues­day that the eight deaths were con­firmed by Tu­cu­pi­ta Com­mis­sion­er, Noel Valder­ra­ma, who is Sec­re­tary of Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty of the state.

He al­so called on cit­i­zens to pro­vide up­dat­ed pho­tos as well as in­for­ma­tion on tat­toos and cloth­ing that will as­sist in iden­ti­fy­ing the bod­ies.

The first two bod­ies—that of a man and a woman—were found in Tu­cu­pi­ta on Sat­ur­day, Tane Tanae Delta re­port­ed. On Sun­day, the bod­ies of three women were trans­ferred and on Mon­day a fur­ther three bod­ies were trans­ferred to the port of CVF 611 in Tu­cu­pi­ta.

Out of the eight dead, six are fe­males and two are males. Six of the de­ceased have been iden­ti­fied by fin­ger­prints and tat­toos but two bod­ies have not yet been iden­ti­fied or rec­og­nized.

Venezue­lan of­fi­cials have called on rel­a­tives who are sure that their loved ones were in the boat or are miss­ing, to go to the CI­CPC to fa­cil­i­tate the recog­ni­tion and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the bod­ies by pro­vid­ing names and sur­names, iden­ti­ty signs, foot­prints or traces of sur­gi­cal in­ter­ven­tions, and epi­der­mal in­scrip­tions) of the dis­ap­peared.

How­ev­er, last Mon­day the Tane Tanae re­port­ed that the gov­er­nor of Delta Amacuro state, Lize­ta Hernán­dez, had promised to take ac­tion against those who fa­cil­i­tat­ed the il­le­gal trip to Trinidad.

"We will not hide any­thing and the guilty must pay with the full weight of the law," Hernán­dez re­port­ed­ly said.

The boat, which left Tu­cu­pi­ta, had been trav­el­ling along the Bo­ca de Ser­pi­ente strait of the sea near Soleda­do Rock in Venezue­lan wa­ters, when it was hit by a first wave and then a sec­ond.

The pas­sen­gers tried to dis­pose of their be­long­ings and goods which they had planned to sell in Trinidad. But as the boat sunk, they held on to float­ing items. On­ly those with life jack­ets sur­vived.

Among those list­ed as dead was Bár­bara Al­calá, who left a two-year-old daugh­ter with her moth­er in search of a bet­ter life in Trinidad. Al­so found dead was a 17-year-old girl, Leu­mirys León, as well as Dulce Ve­gas Mil­lán, from Maturín, Mon­a­gas state, and Arx­eilys Aguilarte, a res­i­dent of Tu­cu­pi­ta. All six peo­ple have al­ready been buried.

Mean­while, those who were res­cued have been iden­ti­fied as: Leonar­do Marín, from Maturín, Mon­a­gas state; Nor­ber­to Martínez, of La Flori­da, Vir­gen del Valle parish, Tu­cu­pi­ta mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty; Reinal­do Vil­lar­roel, of Cocuina, Vir­gen del Valle parish, Tu­cu­pi­ta mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty; Al­ber­to Mon­tero­la, of La Hor­que­ta, Vir­gen del Valle parish, Tu­cu­pi­ta mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty; Al­ba Sánchez, of Vil­la Bo­li­var­i­ana, Tu­cu­pi­ta mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty; Alexan­der Jiménez, of Cocuina Bloom, Vir­gen del Valle parish, Tu­cu­pi­ta mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty; and Lazarde Salazar, of La Hor­que­ta, Vir­gen del Valle parish, Tu­cu­pi­ta mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty.