Rel­a­tives and friends of sev­en fish­er­men lost at sea are mak­ing a des­per­ate plea for as­sis­tance in find­ing them.

The men were on six boats in the Gulf of Paria around 11 pm on Mon­day night when pi­rates struck.

Sev­en of the nine men who were on board the six boats are still miss­ing. Four of the ves­sels re­main un­ac­count­ed for.

They have been iden­ti­fied as Leslie De­boula, Anand Ram­per­sad, Shi­va Ramdeo, Bran­don Kissoon, Justin Kissoon, Ja­son Bap­tiste, Trevor, and Alex.

Fish­er­men Bri­an Seemu­n­gal and Rob­bie Jag­ger­nauth were able to make it to shore this morn­ing and raise an alarm.

Pres­i­dent of the Car­li Bay Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Im­ti­az Khan says there is cur­rent­ly a search by car­ried out by oth­er fish­er­men.

Fish­er­man Joel Men­doza, who just left to join the search par­ty, ap­pealed to fish­er­men from oth­er parts of the coun­try to come out and as­sist.

"We need all the help we can get, any­body who can come out, please come out, " Men­doza said.