Joshua Seemu­n­gal

As peo­ple con­tin­ue to cel­e­brate the be­gin­ning of 2022, a des­per­ate and heart­bro­ken fa­ther is in­stead pray­ing that he will fi­nal­ly be re­unit­ed with his miss­ing three-year-old daugh­ter and 36-year-old wife.

Manuel Vil­l­a­ba moved to Trinidad 25 years ago from Venezuela but in one night his fam­i­ly that he worked so hard to pro­vide for, dis­ap­peared with­out a trace.

The two Venezue­lan mi­grants have been miss­ing for 10 days.

Dur­ing that time, Vil­l­a­ba has mus­tered all his re­main­ing strength to ex­pand the search ef­fort for his loved ones, but the search has come up short so far.

In­stead of speak­ing with his beloved daugh­ter on Christ­mas Day, he was left to won­der if he will ever hear her voice again.

“She was such a hap­py child. I’ve nev­er known such a hap­py child,” he said. “Right now, I’m not feel­ing to eat. I’m not feel­ing to do any­thing. I’m just think­ing about them—my lit­tle ba­by girl out­side there.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Vil­l­a­ba’s apart­ment, his daugh­ter’s toys were spread across the floor. He looked dazed and short of sleep.

“It’s ter­ri­ble. I feel re­al­ly bad. I put them on a boat and every­one was fine. The boat was not over­loaded or any­thing like that - on­ly nine peo­ple were aboard. Six peo­ple were fam­i­ly, a cap­tain and a crew mem­ber,” Manuel Vil­l­a­ba said.

“I have peo­ple in Trinidad and Venezuela look­ing every­where, but not even an emp­ty plas­tic bag or a cool­er from the boat was found. I’m look­ing for more as­sis­tance.”

On De­cem­ber 23rd, Manuel Vil­l­a­ba’s fam­i­ly left Trinidad from Ch­aguara­mas, at around 8 pm, des­tined for Venezuela but haven’t been seen since.

Vil­l­a­ba’s daugh­ter and wife are two of nine peo­ple who dis­ap­peared on a Trinida­di­an boat called Amiyah.

Miss­ing are Venezue­lan mi­grants: Rober­sis Del Valle Mon­taño Fuentes, Alexan­der José Mon­taño Nor­ie­ga, Jhoan­der­son In­dria­go González, Er­ic­ka Nar­vaez, Jo­han Brito, Jo­heily del Valle Moreno Nar­vaez and Mia Ale­gria Narváez.Al­so miss­ing are two Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als. One of them has been re­port­ed miss­ing by his fam­i­ly, 19-year-old Dar­win Alexan­der of Point Cumana. Ac­cord­ing to Vil­l­a­ba, the boat was sup­posed to take them to board the sec­ond lo­cal boat, Amiyah, at Monos Is­land.

Amiyah’s cap­tain was then ex­pect­ed to car­ry them to Cha­cachacare, near the Venezue­lan mar­itime bor­der, Vil­l­a­ba said.

There, wait­ing on the oth­er side of the mar­itime bor­der, was a third boat—a Venezue­lan boat—that would take them to Patos Is­land and then to Guiria in Venezuela.

Vil­l­a­ba said he knew the Venezue­lan boat cap­tain well and trust­ed him.

On the morn­ing of De­cem­ber 24th, Vil­l­a­ba said the Venezue­lan boat cap­tain called him to tell him that the Trinida­di­an boat car­ry­ing his rel­a­tives nev­er showed up.

Vil­l­a­ba’s wife and daugh­ter, as well as the six oth­ers aboard the sec­ond boat, called Amiyah, nev­er board­ed the third boat.

The cap­tain of the first boat, which took them from Ch­aguara­mas to Monos Is­land, re­turned to land.

He said Manuel’s rel­a­tives and the oth­ers board­ed the sec­ond boat. Manuel said he be­lieves the cap­tain be­cause he was able to track the boat’s lo­ca­tion us­ing the Glob­al Po­si­tion­ing Sys­tem, GPS. Vil­l­a­ba’s wife and child came to Trinidad three years ago to live with him. They did not re­turn to Venezuela at any point dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

How­ev­er, this year, he said, they de­cid­ed to re­turn home for the Christ­mas sea­son.

“Home is home. They went home be­cause they want­ed to see their fam­i­ly and spend Christ­mas and to show the ba­by to them. It was three years with­out see­ing the ba­by,” Ju­lia Se­quiera, Manuel’s aunt, said.

“Help us be­cause, for sure, that boat did not sink. We would have known, but some­thing hap­pened. Please, help us. That’s all we want.”

Ju­lia’s sis­ter, Mary, be­lieved some­one out there must know some­thing. With tears in her eyes, she plead­ed for any­one with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward.

“A three-year-old ba­by and three of our fam­i­ly dis­ap­pear just so? I can’t be­lieve it. Please let us know, if you know some­thing,” Ju­lia Se­quiera said.

“Nine peo­ple on board—not 24 peo­ple—just nine peo­ple. We don’t have noth­ing. Noth­ing. Where’s the boat? Where’s my fam­i­ly?”

Ac­cord­ing to Se­quiera, her rel­a­tives are hon­est peo­ple who came to Trinidad for a bet­ter life.

She said they have nev­er been in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.