Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Ce­dros res­i­dents say the south­west­ern penin­su­la may be a tran­sit for drug traf­fick­ing but not a haven for hu­man traf­fick­ers.

This as po­lice spent two days search­ing parts of Ce­dros and Moru­ga in search of ab­duct­ed hair­dress­er Ria Sookdeo.

Even though it has been five days since her dis­ap­pear­ance, Sookdeo's fam­i­ly has not giv­en up hope.

At Fullar­ton Junc­tion yes­ter­day, a hand­ful of res­i­dents who were wait­ing at the bus stop said Ce­dros was not known for hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Bob­by Seep­er­sad said: "I don't think that girl is here. They say­ing all kinds of things about Ce­dros which are not true. I liv­ing here all my life and nev­er once have I heard of any­body in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing."

Say­ing there have been re­ports of miss­ing fish­er­men de­tained by Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties for fish­ing out­side of ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, Seep­er­sad said there have been no re­ports of peo­ple be­ing traf­ficked through the porous coast­lines of the south­west­ern penin­su­la.

A re­cent boat ride off the fish­ing vil­lages of St Marie, Fullar­ton and Ce­dros showed ar­eas along the coast which are heav­i­ly erod­ed and lined with shal­low caves. The caves which are on­ly ac­ces­si­ble by boat, are some­times used for smug­gling il­le­gal car­go.

How­ev­er, a law en­force­ment source said there had nev­er been any sight­ings of peo­ple be­ing smug­gled from the coast­line.

Fish­er­man Tang­choon Shear­wood, who was loung­ing in a ham­mock at the sea­side, said there was no hu­man traf­fick­ing be­ing con­duct­ed from Ce­dros or Ica­cos.

"I liv­ing here for 59 years and here is very safe. Our fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty has no crime but it is not safe once you leave land. We have too many ban­dits at sea," Shear­wood said.

He said his broth­er, Michael Shear­wood, was killed at sea by rob­bers in 2006.

"We know that some il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties may take place here and we want po­lice pa­trols but we need more Coast Guard pa­trols too," Shear­wood said.