Two days af­ter pi­rates at­tacked a group of fish­er­men on the high seas dur­ing cur­few hours and threw them over­board, fish­er­men from South and Cen­tral Trinidad are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to set up a Coast Guard base off the Clax­ton Bay port.

This fol­lows a se­ries of pi­rate at­tacks on the Gulf of Paria which have left fish­er­men fear­ful for their lives.

On Thurs­day around 1.30 am, five gun­men in­ter­cept­ed a 28-foot pirogue named “Tris­tan, Jeron & Nicholai,” reg­is­tered TFV 5250, about two miles off the Clax­ton Bay port. 

As three of the gun­men board­ed the boat, Cap­tain Desmond Belfast, 43, jumped over­board and be­gan swim­ming to shore. He sought refuge from a pass­ing ves­sel. 

The gun­men es­caped with the $65,000 boat, 50 pounds of fish­ing nets and catch. The en­gine is val­ued at $55,000. 

A fa­ther and a son from Wood­land, who were fish­ing that same night, were al­so ac­cost­ed and thrown over­board. They man­aged to es­cape and their stolen boat was sub­se­quent­ly re­cov­ered. 

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent on Wednes­day, fish­er­men Tara­dath Balka­ran, 36 and Son­ni­lal Basaraj, 63, re­port­ed that around 8.45 pm, they were one and a half miles off Ota­heite Bay, Oropouche, when three men, one with a firearm, held them up at gun­point. They were or­dered to jump over­board and the men es­caped with Balka­ran’s boat.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Clax­ton Bay Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion vice pres­i­dent Bha­dose Sook­nanan said they want­ed a Coast Guard base set up near the port to pro­tect fish­er­men from King’s Wharf, Car­li Bay, Or­ange Val­ley and Clax­ton Bay. 

“We have been call­ing for this for a long time now and the Fish­eries Di­vi­sion and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have not lis­tened to us. We want a base in the Cen­tral re­gion so that reg­u­lar pa­trols could be done, so fish­er­men will not be at the mer­cy of thugs, pi­rates and il­le­gal smug­glers,” Sook­nanan said.

He ex­plained that pi­rate at­tacks will con­tin­ue un­less some­thing is done.

Boat own­er Nicol­son Seecha­ran said af­ter Belfast was at­tacked, he called the St Mar­garet’s and Mara­bel­la Po­lice Sta­tions ask­ing for help but he did not get any re­sponse. 

“This is an on­go­ing thing. It is not the first time we are robbed. I have loans to pay and what I will tell the ADB con­cern­ing the loan?” Seecha­ran said.

Mean­while, sec­re­tary of Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea Gary Aboud said a $10,000 con­fi­den­tial re­ward has been of­fered to any­one who as­sists in re­cov­er­ing the stolen boat, en­gine and nets.

“Last night (Thurs­day), four ves­sels were stolen at sea and fish­ers thrown over­board in the dark of night, and yet our Gov­ern­ment has not act­ed on a sin­gle rec­om­men­da­tion made in 2019 by the gov­ern­ment-con­vened stake­hold­er com­mit­tee,” Aboud said in a state­ment.

“How many more must die? We con­tin­ue to ap­peal for good pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion and are dis­turbed that our PM did not re­ply to our let­ter of rec­om­men­da­tions hand-de­liv­ered to his of­fice.”

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can con­tact the St Mar­garet’s Po­lice Sta­tion at 659-2530 or the FFOS at 355 -7672.