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Wednesday, January 22, 2025

PM says Venezuelan baby's shooting 'an accident' as Coast Guard carried out 'reasonable' orders

by

Guardian Media
1078 days ago
20220208
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has said that the shoot­ing death of a Venezue­lan ba­by by the Coast Guard on Sat­ur­day was an ac­ci­dent and added that the Coast Guard mem­bers were car­ry­ing out "rea­son­able and pro­fes­sion­al or­ders un­der in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols and law".

Ba­by Ya Elvis San­toyo and his moth­er Darie Elvis Eliag­nis Sara­bia were il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing T&T on Sat­ur­day night from Tu­cu­pi­ta when they were or­dered to stop by the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said the ves­sel did not stop and at­tempt­ed to ram their ves­sel when they opened fire.

Dr Row­ley made his com­ment on a Face­book post as he sought to crit­i­cise Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who, on Mon­day night, be­rat­ed the Coast Guard for the shoot­ing of the ba­by.

"IT WAS AN AC­CI­DENT!" Dr Row­ley said us­ing all cap­i­tal let­ters.

"Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly ac­cused the Coast Guard of­fi­cers of MUR­DER! Ac­cord­ing to her the craft should have been al­lowed to evade the bor­der pa­trol. They should have known that there was an en­dan­gered ba­by on board. We re­gret the ter­ri­ble loss of that in­no­cent in­fant but what should we think of the op­por­tunis­tic, shame­less, at­ten­tion-seek­ing la­dy who is so bereft of any scin­til­la of pa­tri­o­tism," he added.

Dr Row­ley ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion Leader of hav­ing "lim­boed to a new ex­pect­ed dis­gust­ing low".

"We are in­un­dat­ed with guns, am­mu­ni­tion and traf­ficked hu­mans across that bor­der. Our bor­der pa­trol at­tempts to stop a craft that re­fused to com­ply and act­ed ag­gres­sive­ly to­wards law­ful, rea­son­able and pro­fes­sion­al or­ders un­der in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols and law. Our of­fi­cer on pa­trol un­der pro­fes­sion­al or­ders at­tempt­ed to dis­able the craft in the dark­ness of the ocean. The craft could eas­i­ly have been car­ry­ing any car­go of guns, am­mu­ni­tion, killers or any­thing on the move. There was an ac­ci­dent in which un­for­tu­nate­ly a pas­sen­ger child was re­gret­tably killed," he said.

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro has asked for an 'ex­haus­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion' in­to the shoot­ing and the Unit­ed Na­tions has al­so spo­ken out against it.

On Tues­day, dozens of Venezue­lans protest­ed in front of the Trinidad and To­ba­go em­bassy in Cara­cas, Venezuela, con­demn­ing the shoot­ing as a "mur­der".


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