Sascha Wil­son and Kellyann Lemessy

US strikes on sus­pect­ed drug ves­sels in Caribbean wa­ters, part of its war on nar­co-traf­fick­ing, are spark­ing anx­i­ety in Ma­yaro among lo­cal fish­er­men.

Fol­low­ing news re­ports that there was a third lethal strike by the US, Guardian Me­dia spoke with sev­er­al fish­er­men who said these ac­tions are af­fect­ing their abil­i­ty to fish with­out fear.

Fish­er­men ex­plained that they usu­al­ly ven­ture to an area called the Mang in Tu­cu­pi­ta, most­ly be­tween De­cem­ber and March, be­cause this is when the best catch is found.

How­ev­er, Steve Williams, who has been sell­ing fish since he was 17, said that fish­er­folk are now be­ing more cau­tious when go­ing out to sea.

“They go­ing out as nor­mal, but they not ven­tur­ing out in that area clos­er to Venezuela. They stay­ing close to Trinidad wa­ter, the safer zone,” Williams ex­plained.

Fish­er­man John­son Dave added that the sit­u­a­tion is im­pact­ing liveli­hoods.

“With all these com­ments in the me­dia about Venezuela, and Venezuela be­ing our neigh­bour, some of the fish­er­men are fright­ened to take the chance to fish where they nor­mal­ly go. It has an im­pact on the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty be­cause you are see­ing it in the news. The men in Ica­cos fish­ing vil­lage, clos­er to Venezuela than us, they don’t want to take that chance be­cause it’s high risk. You might be tot­ing gas or fish, and next thing they take it for some­thing else, be­cause they say they go­ing on in­tel. But not all in­tel is good in­tel,” he said.

An­oth­er fish­er­man, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said he fears for his life.

“Yes, we must be fear­ful for our lives be­cause the boats that are go­ing out there, the ships blow­ing them out of the sea, so that putting all of we at risk be­cause we mov­ing at night too,” he said. He ex­plained that fish­er­men are now stay­ing clos­er to shore, which could re­duce their catch since fish are some­times far­ther out.

Fish­er­folk in vil­lages along the cen­tral south coast and the south­west­ern parts of the is­land, in­clud­ing Moru­ga, Ota­heite, and Ica­cos, have shared sim­i­lar con­cerns.

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers have main­tained that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela re­mains cor­dial de­spite es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions and height­ened rhetoric among lead­ers.

In Au­gust, the US de­ployed sev­er­al war­ships to the Caribbean re­gion and has since bombed three sus­pect­ed drug ves­sels—the lat­est strike oc­curred on Fri­day. At least 17 peo­ple have been killed so far.

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro con­demned the op­er­a­tions and re­spond­ed with mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es near the Caribbean Is­land of La Or­chi­la, in­volv­ing thou­sands of troops and naval as­sets.

Venezue­lan lead­ers have al­so crit­i­cised T&T for sup­port­ing US ac­tions.