The Coast Guard has con­firmed that it is em­bark­ing on a search and res­cue mis­sion of a Venezue­lan ves­sel that sank on its way to Trinidad and To­ba­go, with dozens of Venezue­lans on board.

A state­ment by the Coast Guard said that it re­ceived a re­port at 11.40 pm Wednes­day, in­di­cat­ing that a pirogue named B/P JHON­NALY JOSE (Reg­is­tra­tion Num­ber: AR­SI-CA-0067) left Venezuela on Tues­day and was re­port­ed to have over­turned whilst at sea.

The Coast Guard said that to­day it was con­firmed that 25 per­sons were on board the ves­sel with the last known po­si­tion of the ves­sel as two nau­ti­cal miles (3.7 km) East of Patos Is­land, an is­land in the north-west­ern Gulf of Paria and a part of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela.

"Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we have been in­formed that a to­tal of four per­sons have been res­cued and 21 per­sons are cur­rent­ly still un­ac­count­ed for," the state­ment said.

It added: "This is­land is lo­cat­ed with­in the Mar­itime Res­cue Co-or­di­na­tion Cen­tre of Venezuela and as such it is their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to co­or­di­nate search and res­cue op­er­a­tions with­in that ge­o­graph­ic area. How­ev­er, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard has been en­gaged and in ac­cor­dance with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard’s roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with re­gard to the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion for the Safe­ty of Life at Sea (SO­LAS) and In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion on Mar­itime Search and Res­cue (SAR) as well as our diplo­mat­ic links with the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela, Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard as­sets have al­ready been ac­tioned to aid in the search and res­cue op­er­a­tion and fur­ther ves­sel de­ploy­ments will be co­or­di­nat­ed, once re­quired."

The Coast Guard said it will work close­ly with its Venezue­lan coun­ter­parts to en­sure an ef­fec­tive search and res­cue op­er­a­tion.