Po­lice are ap­peal­ing to mem­bers of the Venezue­lan mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty to come for­ward and help iden­ti­fy the bod­ies of two women who were found buried in a shal­low grave in Cen­tral Trinidad ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said the vic­tims were His­pan­ic and sus­pect they could be Venezue­lan mi­grants.

Act­ing on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived from an in­for­mant, of­fi­cers of the Na­tion­al Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Unit (NSOU) went to Ram­saran Trace, War­ren Road, Cunu­pia, around 11.30 pm on Wednes­day and found a dis­turbed area ap­prox­i­mate­ly 42 feet north of the road­way.

Up­on in­ves­ti­gat­ing, of­fi­cers found the bod­ies of the two women ly­ing be­side each oth­er in a shal­low grave es­ti­mat­ed to be about four feet deep.

While the heads of both women had been wrapped in bub­ble wrap—on­ly one had her hands bound.

The scene was im­me­di­ate­ly cor­doned off and ad­di­tion­al units, in­clud­ing the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, the Crime Scene Unit, the Ca­nine Unit, the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit, and the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion Task Force (Area North), all re­spond­ed.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer ar­rived around 3.30 am and de­clared both women dead be­fore or­der­ing au­top­sies be con­duct­ed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers were un­able to say if the vic­tims bore any tat­toos or scars but con­firmed items of jew­ellery found on both will be used in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process. They con­firmed the area, which formed part of the Ca­roni lands, was a “nor­mal dump­ing ground.”

Mean­while, Venezue­lan and hu­man rights ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­lez yes­ter­day con­demned the killings. She crit­i­cised Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans for fail­ing to ad­dress the grow­ing crime rate.

“We hear them ar­gu­ing about who duncey while peo­ple are get­ting killed, mur­dered,” she said.

Gon­za­lez ar­gued that His­pan­ic women of­ten bear the brunt of gen­der-based vi­o­lence and pub­lic stig­ma.

“Peo­ple do not have the right to kill some­one if they are a pros­ti­tute,” she added, point­ing to wide­spread xeno­pho­bic sen­ti­ment on­line and a lack of sup­port for vic­tims traf­ficked from Venezuela.

Gon­za­lez said many women are ei­ther lured or kid­napped and brought to Trinidad to work as pros­ti­tutes, of­ten forced to re­pay large sums for their re­lease. She urged the Gov­ern­ment to crack down on pros­ti­tu­tion rings and ad­dress the con­di­tions that al­low such vi­o­lence to per­sist.

Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed al­so con­demned the killings, call­ing the dis­cov­ery “sick­en­ing be­yond words.”

He said, “It is not just a crime scene, it is a crime against hu­man­i­ty. This heinous act strikes fear in­to the hearts of women across our coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly those al­ready vul­ner­a­ble, like our mi­grant sis­ters who left every­thing be­hind in search of safe­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Mo­hammed ex­pressed con­fi­dence in Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, as he called for de­ci­sive ac­tion to be tak­en on crime.

“He is a man of ac­tion and I know he is tak­ing this mat­ter se­ri­ous­ly. I trust that un­der his lead­er­ship, those re­spon­si­ble for this evil act will be hunt­ed down and jus­tice will be de­liv­ered with­out de­lay.”

He added, “We need swift, bold and fear­less polic­ing that sends a clear mes­sage. If you hurt our women, you will be found and you will pay.”