Sascha Wil­son

Rel­a­tives of three miss­ing Trinida­di­an men are search­ing for an­swers fol­low­ing news that a ves­sel that left Trinidad sank in Venezue­lan wa­ters on Fri­day with at least 20 peo­ple, in­clud­ing Venezue­lan na­tion­als, aboard.

It is be­lieved that fish­er­man Rishi “Short­man” See­lochan, 38, of Pe­nal butch­er Zaid “John­ny” Al­ladin, 26, and fish­er­man Vi­jayanand “Pro­mo” Too­phanie, both of Bar­rack­pore, to­geth­er with an­oth­er man nick­named Mon­key of Moru­ga were aboard a ves­sel that left Moru­ga last week.

But, their fam­i­lies have re­ceived no con­fir­ma­tion that they were on the ill-fat­ed pirogue.

The Venezuela me­dia, how­ev­er, is re­port­ing that a Trinida­di­an nick­named Mon­key was one of two of the peo­ple aboard the cap­sized ves­sel who were res­cued by Guyanese fish­er­men on Sun­day.

In an in­ter­view at her Pe­nal home yes­ter­day, Al­ladin’s sis­ter April Khan said she last saw her broth­er on Tues­day.

“From what I un­der­stand he went with friends to Venezuela be­tween Tues­day and the boat that they went in it sank and we did not know any­thing un­til Sun­day,” sobbed Khan.

How­ev­er, she says she has no idea where he went or with whom.

When they got the call on Sun­day, they be­gan do­ing their own in­quires and found out that he went out on a boat.

His van was found in Moru­ga near the riv­er.

Khan, how­ev­er, said the in­for­ma­tion com­ing out of the Venezue­lan me­dia has been con­flict­ing.

‘We heard that some Guyanese boat pass and pick up two of them in the sea and went to Guyana and the per­son the Trinida­di­an he con­tact his fam­i­ly and said the boat sank and they were res­cued from this oth­er boat from Guyana and we heard the two of them were in the hos­pi­tal in Venezuela and we was try­ing to be­lieve that my broth­er was one of the per­sons there and then they come back again in an­oth­er news it wasn’t him and so it keep go­ing. We just go­ing by what peo­ple say­ing, noth­ing from of­fi­cials.” She says the fam­i­ly has not been cop­ing well. “It re­al hard be­cause we don’ know­ing noth­ing,” she lament­ed.

Khan said they tried to con­tact the Venezue­lan and Guyanese Em­bassy with­out suc­cess.

Com­plain­ing that their at­tempts to get in­for­ma­tion from the Venezue­lan and Guyanese Em­bassy have been un­suc­cess­ful, she ap­pealed to any­one in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or have of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion to con­tact them.

Mean­while, Too­phanie’s rel­a­tives be­lieve that he was on an­oth­er ves­sel and not the boat that sank in the Venezue­lan wa­ter.

She said he left their Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore home on Tues­day to fish with Al­ladin, See­lochan and an­oth­er man nick­named Mon­key.

Their in­quires re­vealed that the men had to call a me­chan­ic to re­pair the en­gine. The rel­a­tive said her broth­er had no rea­son to go to Venezuela.

Fol­low­ing the COVID-19 re­stric­tions last year, she said her broth­er could no longer op­er­ate a gam­ing ma­chine be­cause their bar had to close so he de­cid­ed to buy a boat and fish to earn a liv­ing.

The fam­i­ly made a re­port to the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice on Sun­day and the Coast Guard and An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad have been in con­tact with them.

At their home in Bar­rack­pore, See­lochan’s wife Omatie Ram­sa­roop said he told her he was go­ing fish­ing, but since last Wednes­day af­ter­noon she has not heard any­thing from him.