The fam­i­ly of the Venezue­lan mi­grant ba­by fa­tal­ly shot by Coast Guard of­fi­cers at sea over the week­end wants the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to grant them per­mits to stay in T&T.

The broth­er and cousin of the dead one-year-old child have re­tained the ser­vices of at­tor­neys at the CJ Williams Law Com­pa­ny to make the ap­pli­ca­tion on their be­half.

The child, iden­ti­fied as Ya Elvis San­toyo Sara­bia and his moth­er Dari Elvis Eliag­nis Sara­bia were among 17 adults and 10 chil­dren en­ter­ing T&T on a pirogue on Sat­ur­day night.

They were re­port­ed­ly com­ing from Tu­cu­pi­ta.

The Coast Guard re­port­ed that Coast guards­men or­dered the pirogue to stop but the cap­tain of the boat re­port­ed­ly re­fused.

The Coast Guard, in a re­lease, stat­ed the of­fi­cers im­ple­ment­ed pro­to­cols to stop the pirogue by tak­ing out its out­board en­gine af­ter which it was dis­cov­ered that the moth­er was shot and her ba­by wound­ed. The child died in her arms, a re­port said.

Speak­ing on the fam­i­ly’s be­half, at­tor­ney Blaine So­brien said, “Present­ly our clients are refugees and there are rel­a­tives of the ba­by in Trinidad and To­ba­go that can­not re­turn to Venezuela as some of them were mem­bers of the armed forces and if they re­turn they can face jail time or killed and the rest of the fam­i­ly are al­so at risk should they re­turn as of many Venezue­lan na­tion­als in Trinidad and To­ba­go seek­ing refugee sta­tus in this coun­try.”

The lawyer said his clients are seek­ing per­mits from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty pend­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion with re­gard to the mi­nor on the boat which is an ex­treme­ly un­for­tu­nate and un­prece­dent­ed event.

He said his clients will al­so want the Unit­ed Na­tions Refugee Agency UNCHR to fa­cil­i­tate their man­date and speak with them and en­sure that they are per­mit­ted and fa­cil­i­tat­ed their safe trav­el to an­oth­er coun­try where they may not be per­se­cut­ed and that their lives may not be in dan­ger.

“We would like to see this fam­i­ly re­unit­ed and re­uni­fi­ca­tion of this fam­i­ly in line with in­ter­na­tion­al prin­ci­ples and all UNCHR prin­ci­ples as well cur­rent­ly we are en­list­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Par­lia­ment of Hu­man Rights in this mat­ter and we are sim­ply seek­ing to have the Sara­bia fam­i­ly unit­ed once again,” So­brien said.

He added: “These peo­ple are feel­ing very vul­ner­a­ble and at any point, they may be de­port­ed and they may not have safe haven in Trinidad and To­ba­go they are refugees and right now here in Trinidad and To­ba­go we are not do­ing any­thing to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion as refugees are be­ing de­port­ed with the risk of be­ing killed or sent to prison for life.”

So­brien said lawyers would reach out to all the rel­e­vant bod­ies to en­sure that the fam­i­ly can stay and be re­set­tled in an­oth­er coun­try as refugees.

Broth­er of the dead ba­by Joel Sara­bia, speak­ing with the as­sis­tance of a trans­la­tor, told Guardian Me­dia that he spoke with his moth­er and that she is rest­ing at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, out of the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU).

He said his fam­i­ly in Trinidad and Venezuela are very con­cerned and wor­ried be­cause now that they are now in the spot­light their life can be at risk.

Many Venezue­lans in T&T are al­so now call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist them with find­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers on board the pirogue on Sat­ur­day night.

Cousin of Darie Elvis Eliag­nis Sara­bia told Guardian Me­dia that the fam­i­ly came to T&T due to Gov­ern­ment pres­sure in Venezuela be­cause his fam­i­ly open­ly protest­ed against the cur­rent regime.

He said he loved T&T and felt safer here than his home coun­try.

He is al­so ask­ing for the op­tion to be in T&T for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of ba­by Ya Elvis and for his fam­i­ly to be set­tled else­where.

The at­tor­neys for the fam­i­ly are ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er let­ters to all the rel­e­vant agen­cies to as­sist the fam­i­ly and to al­so get in­for­ma­tion on the in­ci­dent at sea. —Re­port­ing by Ot­to Car­ring­ton