One of the survivors of Tuesday night’s boat tragedy in rough seas between T&T and Venezuela said the vessel had been attempting to return to Isla de Patos when it capsized.
“We were too many people,” said Yusbreilys Merchán, a 23-year-old hairdresser who is just one of just nine Venezuelan migrants who survived. Two people have been confirmed dead and 20 are still missing.
Merchán said she was travelling with 33 other people in the fishing boat that left Tuesday from Güiria.
She said in an interview with Venezuela’s El Nacional newspaper: “Since we left one of the engines it was failing, but we insisted and continued the trip. When we were arriving at the Isla de Patos an engine was turned off and water began to enter.”
A video released by Merchán’s family shows when the young woman, exhausted and wrapped in a blanket, was transferred in a small motorboat to Venezuela.
She said the vessel was about half an hour from T&T when the captain decided to return to the Isla de Patos. That was when the accident occurred.
“Wave after wave got into the boat,” she recalled.
Merchán said she had just seconds to react. As other passengers screamed in panic, she stripped off her clothes to lighten her weight before diving into the water and swimming toward a nearby island.
When she and another companion finally reached the rocky coast in the middle of the night, they climbed over boulders to get to safety.
Merchán is currently being treated in a hospital in Güiria after suffering burns on her leg from boat fuel that caught fire, as well as an eye injury
According to the authorities in Venezuela, the two bodies recovered are that of a 16-year-old girl and an adult male.
A report from the Guardia Nacional said that the “boat turned around due to the strong waves near Isla de Los Patos”.
The boat had sailed under the cover of darkness from Güiria with 25 people and stopped in Río Salado to pick up more passengers.
Relatives of the missing are expressing concern that not enough is being done to find their loved ones. The brother of one young woman said there are reports that the search will be suspended.
“It is said that the mayor of the Valdez de Güiria municipality said he was going to stop the search. I do not think it is convenient because they have not found even half of the victims, and the mayor is going to stop the search only because he wants to politicize our pain. I think it should not be like that,” the man, who was not identified, said in an interview.
He said fishermen are the ones who have been carrying out the searches at sea.
“Those who are making trips in the waters of Venezuela are the fishermen of the area. Actually, the mayor has not done anything,” he said.
Also expressing concern about the situation was Omar González Moreno, a deputy in Venezuela’s Opposition-controlled National Assembly, who blamed President Nicolás Maduro for the tragedy
“Only in socialism have we seen how Venezuelans go to sea with the hope of reaching Trinidad or Curaçao. Never in our history have we seen such an act of despair by Venezuelans,” Moreno said.
He said Venezuela had gone from being the “jewel of the Americas” to being an exporter of emigrants.
“We see how hundreds of Venezuelans cross the borders between Colombia and Venezuela, and Venezuela and Brazil, all thanks to a regime that impoverished the Venezuelans and that advances a raid against the citizenship,” he said.
The T&T Coast Guard has been assisting in the search for missing passengers from the capsized boat. However, hopes that other passengers will be rescued are increasingly slim.