Resh­ma Ra­goonath

As fam­i­lies around the world cel­e­brate Christ­mas to­day, three Cara­pichaima fam­i­lies are pray­ing for a Yule­tide mir­a­cle for their miss­ing rel­a­tives to come home for the hol­i­days.

Yes­ter­day rel­a­tives of fish­er­men Bis­ram "Pine" Sookdeo, 48, De­r­ick Bil­badal, 36, and Arnold Anoop, 37, of Brick­field Vil­lage, Wa­ter­loo Road, all of whom went miss­ing in Oc­to­ber, on a fish­ing trip in the Gulf of Paria, said they had no Christ­mas spir­it this year.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, the fam­i­lies said they were spend­ing the day pray­ing and hop­ing for a mir­a­cle.

"My Christ­mas wish is to have my broth­er Arnold, and my hus­band Der­rick, and Bis­ram home. I have no idea what is go­ing on with them. The search has stopped and no one is call­ing us, no one is telling us any­thing. We have been for­got­ten," lament­ed An­na, Anoop's younger sis­ter.

Rel­a­tives said on Oc­to­ber 21 the three fish­er­men said they were head­ed down the is­lands to fish aboard a 28-foot pirogue named Des­tiny and would re­turn soon. It was the last time they were seen.

Sookdeo's wife, Marie Dook­ie, re­ceived a phone call from some­one who said the fish­er­men had had en­gine trou­ble on the ves­sel near Red Hill.

The Coast Guard searched the Gulf of Paria and off the north of Trinidad, but there was no trace of the boat, nor of the three fish­er­men. Their fam­i­lies are still in the dark about what hap­pened to them.

Yes­ter­day while many were out bustling about do­ing last-minute shop­ping the Anoops, Bil­badals and Sookdeos were at home griev­ing for their miss­ing loved ones.

An­na said Bil­badal's four chil­dren, Fer­nan­do Ma­hadeo, 16, Dar­ius Ma­hadeo, 12, Jade Bil­badal, eight, and Jared Der­rick Bil­badal, five, said they have one Christ­mas re­quest.

"They said they do not want any­thing for Christ­mas. They do not want any toy, they do not want any­thing. They just want them to come home," she said.

An­na said her fam­i­ly, like the fam­i­ly of the oth­er miss­ing fish­er­men, was fac­ing a bleak Yule­tide sea­son and are forced to de­pend on the kind­ness of friends and fam­i­ly to put a meal on their ta­ble for Christ­mas.

"I do not have mon­ey for Christ­mas shop­ping. We are cop­ing how we can. He was the on­ly one work­ing. We do not have a Christ­mas this year. We are still hurt­ing; we just want them to come home and for every­thing to go back to the way it was," she said.

Dook­ie summed up her sit­u­a­tion as "re­al stress." "It is re­al­ly sad. We have been to­geth­er for 28 years. We have one child. He was the bread­win­ner home. I not work­ing, I am a house­wife. So, right now my Christ­mas is very dim-dim and my cup­board is bare," she lament­ed.

The cou­ple has a 24-year-old son, Amos. Dook­ie, like An­na, be­lieves the miss­ing fish­er­men have been for­got­ten. "Peo­ple do not care. We tried all how to get help for them and we didn't re­al­ly get no help. We do not know what is hap­pen­ing. My wish is for my hus­band to come back home. I can­not be hap­py on Christ­mas Day with­out him," Dook­ie said.