RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court and the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees are be­ing asked to sup­port in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the Feb­ru­ary 5 shoot­ing death of a one-year-old ba­by by the T&T Coast Guard.

In a sto­ry car­ried by Venezue­lan news site Tal Cual Dig­i­tal, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly (AN) elect­ed in 2015, Juan Guaidó, de­nounced the T&T gov­ern­ment for "re­peat­ed mis­treat­ment of Venezue­lans."

He called on the "Trinida­di­an Pub­lic Min­istry" to in­ves­ti­gate the case, not­ing he has asked the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) and the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR) to sup­port this in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the Venezue­lan news site, Guaidó held a press con­fer­ence to speak about the tragedy which un­fold­ed on high seas as the mi­grants were il­le­gal­ly at­tempt­ing to en­ter T&T.

He said, “We are go­ing to de­nounce Trinidad and To­ba­go for re­peat­ed mis­treat­ment of Venezue­lan mi­grants: not just shoot them, de­ny them doc­u­men­ta­tion, de­port them, block en­try gen­er­at­ing ship­wrecks.”

Guaidó urged peo­ple to re­mem­ber the rea­sons why Venezue­lans were flee­ing their coun­try, not­ing that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion must de­ter­mine re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the at­tack.

Guaidó not­ed that the is­sue in Venezuela was a "com­plex hu­man­i­tar­i­an emer­gency that has deep­ened un­der the nose of the Nicolás Maduro regime."

Par­lia­men­tar­i­an Ramón López had al­so ac­cused T&T of hav­ing a hos­tile at­ti­tude against Venezue­lan mi­grants.

The Venezue­lan mi­grant is­sue is ex­pect­ed to be ad­dressed by the OAS, next Wednes­day, the Venezue­lan news site re­port­ed.

Mean­while, the ba­by's moth­er Darielvis Sara­bia con­tin­ues to re­ceive care at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal. Her two-year-old daugh­ter has since been re­leased in­to the care of her hus­band.

Since the in­ci­dent, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to do an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the shoot­ing say­ing it should not be a case of the Coast Guard in­ves­ti­gat­ing the Coast Guard.

Dr Row­ley has re­peat­ed­ly chas­tized Per­sad-Bisses­sar for ac­cus­ing the Coast Guard of mur­der, not­ing the in­ci­dent was an ac­ci­dent.

The T&T gov­ern­ment put for­ward a draft pol­i­cy for refugees in 2017 but since then noth­ing has been fi­nal­ized and mi­grants have lit­tle pro­tec­tion.

Da­ta from the Re­gion­al In­ter­a­gency Co­or­di­na­tion Plat­form for refugees and mi­grants from Venezuela (R4V) notes there are over 28,500 Venezue­lan refugees and mi­grants liv­ing in T&T up to Jan­u­ary this year.

In­creas­ing­ly, mi­grant des­ti­tu­tion has be­come com­mon­place with Venezue­lans beg­ging on the streets and walk­ing around with their chil­dren seek­ing help from lo­cals.