Gail Alexan­der

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne said yes­ter­day the Venezue­lan Em­bassy in T&T has been ful­ly in­formed of the sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing Venezue­lans who were try­ing to get a flight back home and is an­tic­i­pat­ing that suit­able arrange­ments would be im­ple­ment­ed to deal with the sit­u­a­tion and trans­port them.

An air­craft that was ex­pect­ed to trans­port 97 mi­grants back to Venezuela yes­ter­day was halt­ed by Gov­ern­ment af­ter the plane was found to have been sanc­tioned by the Unit­ed States.

Among those who were to re­turn were peo­ple with ter­mi­nal ill­ness­es and dis­abil­i­ties, the el­der­ly and chil­dren.

“Let us go to our home!” they ap­pealed ask­ing that the air­craft be al­lowed to come for them, call­ing on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to as­sist them.

Yes­ter­day, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, who was in a Cari­com In­ter-ses­sion­al meet­ing, told Guardian Me­dia, “The flight was deemed not to be pos­si­ble as planned by the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties as the air­craft they were seek­ing to use is one that is on a sanc­tioned list. There­fore the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry did not grant fi­nal ap­proval for the flight.”

Browne added, “The Em­bassy in Venezuela in Port-of-Spain is ful­ly in­formed and en­gaged in re­solv­ing the sit­u­a­tion and ad­dress­ing the im­me­di­ate needs of their cit­i­zens.”

“It’s an­tic­i­pat­ed that suit­able arrange­ments would be put in place in the near fu­ture to trans­port the prospec­tive pas­sen­gers via an air­craft that is not sanc­tioned.”