Pas­sen­ger traf­fic be­tween Trinidad and Venezuela via the Port of Ce­dros is on the de­cline, ac­cord­ing to trav­el agents and op­er­a­tors who ply the route. 

What was once a bustling link across the Ser­pent’s Mouth (Colum­bus Chan­nel) now sees few­er ves­sels and re­duced num­bers aboard them, as ten­sions sim­mer be­tween T&T and Venezuela.

On­ly two ves­sels cur­rent­ly op­er­ate from Tu­cu­pi­ta, Venezuela to the Ce­dros port, with agents re­port­ing that nei­ther ves­sel is run­ning at full ca­pac­i­ty.

“We used to make two trips a week, some­times more. But now, it’s down to just two boats—and we’re not even fill­ing them,” said Alana Med­i­na, man­ag­er of An­gel Del Orinoco, a pas­sen­ger fer­ry that car­ries up to 35 pas­sen­gers.

“To­day we have 27 pas­sen­gers, most­ly Venezue­lans and Trinida­di­ans. Nor­mal­ly, we’d see up to 34 or more,” Med­i­na re­vealed.

How­ev­er, she said the de­cline start­ed long be­fore Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the state­ment that con­sid­er­a­tion would be giv­en for the T&T Coast Guard to use dead­ly force on any uniden­ti­fied ves­sel en­ter­ing Trinidad’s wa­ters from Venezuela.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Cher­ry George, a Venezue­lan from Cara­cas who has lived in Trinidad for 50 years, shared his rou­tine jour­ney back home.

“I go to Venezuela to spend time with my fam­i­ly. It takes about three and a half hours to reach and costs around $2,500 re­turn.” 

He ac­knowl­edged there was grow­ing con­cern over the re­cent de­vel­op­ments be­tween T&T and Venezuela.

“My fam­i­ly is wor­ried, yes. They are con­cerned. Venezue­lans don’t like what was said,” George said.

An­oth­er trav­el agent, Rakesh Al­bert, not­ed that while some con­fu­sion arose from the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks, the re­al is­sue stemmed from broad­er eco­nom­ic con­di­tions.

“To en­ter here legal­ly, you need a pass­port and visa. So, the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments shouldn’t af­fect us. But yes, some peo­ple don’t ful­ly un­der­stand what was said, and that caus­es wor­ry,” Al­bert ex­plained.

He added: “Every­thing we do here is le­gal. Cus­toms, im­mi­gra­tion—it’s all above board.”

Al­bert al­so high­light­ed the need for re­forms to en­cour­age le­gal trav­el.

“If they could al­low en­try with just a pass­port, it would make things eas­i­er. We need to boost tourism and trade on both sides. More ves­sels, maybe a board­walk or prop­er port de­vel­op­ment—some­thing to make this vi­able long-term.”

Mean­while, Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh con­firmed the slow­down in traf­fic and the chal­lenges of bal­anc­ing mi­gra­tion with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“The port con­tin­ues to op­er­ate, but the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion has dwin­dled. The de­mand on the com­mu­ni­ty isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “There’s an on­go­ing ef­fort by na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to mon­i­tor il­le­gal en­try points. “Mean­while, we need to main­tain prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion of those who come in legal­ly,” he ex­plained.

He said that both Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der and Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge were ad­dress­ing the sit­u­a­tion. Guardian Me­dia reached out to Sturge, and we are await­ing his re­sponse.

Last month Venezuela’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, speak­ing dur­ing his tele­vi­sion pro­gramme Con El Ma­zo Dan­do, al­leged that a Trinida­di­an iden­ti­fied as Gis Kendel Jheron was part of a “ter­ror­ist group” at­tempt­ing to en­ter Venezuela through Trinidad and To­ba­go.

He con­firmed Jheron was cur­rent­ly de­tained un­der “close pro­tec­tion” with “re­spect for his hu­man rights.”

In re­sponse, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar swift­ly dis­missed the claims, with the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­istry of De­fence both stat­ing that there was no ev­i­dence to sup­port the al­le­ga­tions. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called on the Coast Guard to use “dead­ly force” against any uniden­ti­fied ves­sel that en­tered T&T wa­ters from Venezuela.

Ca­bel­lo de­nied the ex­is­tence of any plan to in­vade the wa­ters of the Caribbean coun­try.

He ar­gued that Cara­cas’s re­al con­cern lies in the al­leged en­try of a “ter­ror­ist” group from Trinidad and To­ba­go, which his regime blamed for smug­gling weapons in­to Venezuela. Fish­er­men who iden­ti­fied Jheron as a res­i­dent of Ota­heite said he moved out of Trinidad two years ago and has been liv­ing in Venezuela since 2023.