RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hope is fad­ing for four Guayagua­yare fish­er­men who have been miss­ing since Jan­u­ary 31. This fol­lows the dis­cov­ery of a de­com­pos­ing body tan­gled in the thick un­der­brush of the Cocuina man­groves in north­ern Venezuela.

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray said the body might be that of Rishi Khem­c­hand as a cell phone found near­by is be­lieved to be­long to him.

A con­tact in Venezuela post­ed videos of a de­com­posed corpse crouched in the tidal swamps on the bor­ders of Cocuina. Of­fi­cials from the Cara­cas Em­bassy are ex­pect­ed to li­aise with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of T&T law en­force­ment and fam­i­ly mem­bers.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne promised that the mys­tery of the miss­ing fish­er­men is be­ing treat­ed as a pri­or­i­ty and is “be­ing han­dled with sen­si­tiv­i­ty and dili­gence on both sides of the bor­der.”

Paray said: “We have reached out to Min­is­ter Dr Amery Brown at the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry to of­fer as­sis­tance to the fam­i­ly in repa­tri­at­ing the body. At present, we con­tin­ue to com­mu­ni­cate with Mr Khem­c­hand’s fam­i­ly.”

Leader of the Hunters Search and Res­cue team led by Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat said the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process will be­gin once the body is brought back to T&T to de­ter­mine the cause of death.

The dis­cov­ery of this body has dashed the hopes of dis­traught rel­a­tives of the miss­ing men who had been pray­ing that all of the them would be found alive.

Heer­alal ‘Li­nus’ Kooblal, 54, of Grand La­goon, Ma­yaro, Rishi Khem­c­hand, 38, Andy ‘Tall­man’ George, 40 and the boat’s cap­tain, George Joti have not been seen since they left Grand La­goon Vil­lage, Ma­yaro, two weeks ago on a five-day fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion.

Their boat, Benom 2 TFN 5906, was found cap­sized off Ce­dros near Venezuela on Feb­ru­ary 5. Life­jack­ets and res­cue rafts from the ves­sel were miss­ing giv­ing rel­a­tives hope that the fish­er­men might be safe.

Dr Browne said all as­sis­tance will be pro­vid­ed to the fam­i­lies.

“I have re­mained in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Am­bas­sador of Venezuela and our Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty as the search con­tin­ues. All de­vel­op­ments and up­dates are be­ing shared with the fam­i­ly mem­bers via their MP,” he said.

“This mat­ter is be­ing treat­ed as a pri­or­i­ty and it is be­ing han­dled with sen­si­tiv­i­ty and dili­gence on both sides of the bor­der.”

The dis­cov­ery of the body came just days af­ter a group of fish­er­men wrote to the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter sug­gest­ing that the search for the fish­er­men be ex­tend­ed to the man­groves on the north­ern coast­line of Venezuela.

The fish­er­men said they iden­ti­fied the area where the men went fish­ing and pro­vid­ed co­or­di­nates giv­en by the cap­tain of a boat who had been fish­ing near­by.

“The area in which the boat was lo­cat­ed is ir­rel­e­vant at this time be­cause cur­rents are un­der­wa­ter and since the boat sank, a study of the cur­rent chart shows it will end up where it did,” they said, adding that tides and waves can take the fish­er­men to the north­ern coast of Venezuela, which is pure­ly man­grove.

“With this re­think, we are seek­ing the as­sis­tance of the Coast Guard and the Air Guard to check this area as thor­ough­ly as pos­si­ble. Nine years ago, the Air Guard picked up a Guayagua­yare fish­er­man at Point Ga­le­o­ta and he was able to guide them to this same place where miss­ing fish­er­man Matthew Brown’s body was spot­ted and re­cov­ered,” they said.