DEREK ACHONG

A High Court Judge has or­dered the T&T De­fence Force to re­turn a group of Venezue­lan mi­grant women and chil­dren, who were de­port­ed with le­gal pro­ceed­ings pend­ing yes­ter­day.

Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams made the or­der at the end of a pro­tract­ed emer­gency vir­tu­al hear­ing, last night.

Quin­lan-Williams or­dered that the 19 women and chil­dren, be brought in­to cus­tody in time for a fol­low up hear­ing this af­ter­noon.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­port­ed at­tened the vir­tu­al hear­ing to rep­re­sent his min­istry.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that af­ter the refugees were loaded un­to two civil­ian ves­sels and es­cort­ed out of T&T wa­ters by the Coast Guard around 11.30 am yes­ter­day, they did not re­turn to Venezuela and re­mained at sea in the hope of be­ing al­lowed to re­turn.

The ves­sels re­port­ed­ly had lim­it­ed food sup­plies and fu­el when they left.

The women and mi­nors were de­tained af­ter ar­riv­ing in Chatham, last Tues­day.

The mi­grants were test­ed for COVID-19 and were neg­a­tive. They were held in cus­tody un­til their de­por­ta­tion, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

They are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Nafeesa Mo­hammed and Jerome Ri­ley.