Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

On Ju­ly 18, 14 men car­ried out the largest es­cape in the his­to­ry of the Aripo Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre (IDC) with a small fire.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice re­port, 14 im­mi­gra­tion de­tainees es­caped from the Aripo Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre around 3.40 pm that day af­ter al­leged­ly over­pow­er­ing two de­ten­tion of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to a fire in­side the male hous­ing unit.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the men fled along the west­ern side of the com­pound be­fore cross­ing the south­ern perime­ter fence.

An IDC staff mem­ber, who wit­nessed the en­tire es­cape, but asked not to be named, told Guardian Me­dia there were about 90 de­tainees at the fa­cil­i­ty when the es­cape oc­curred.

Ac­cord­ing to the staff mem­ber, it was part of a plan: “They light some­thing in­side.”

The fire in Cell A did not have to con­sume the build­ing. It on­ly had to pro­duce enough smoke for of­fi­cers to re­spond.

“It wasn’t bad, be­cause they wouldn’t set a fire that they (of­fi­cers) can­not open (the door),” the staff mem­ber said.

A po­lice re­port said an of­fi­cer on sen­try du­ty de­tect­ed smoke com­ing from the male hous­ing unit and alert­ed a su­per­vi­sor. Two of­fi­cers en­tered the build­ing to in­ves­ti­gate.

“As you open this gate to en­ter in­to the main hous­ing area, just as you open that gate, there’s a cell right here. Cell A.”

Ac­cord­ing to the wit­ness, the de­tainees ap­peared to have spent months watch­ing of­fi­cers’ dai­ly move­ments.

“When you’re talk­ing about a ca­pac­i­ty of peo­ple who is ob­serv­ing every dai­ly rou­tine, they have enough time to do it. But the mo­ment you slip…”

Smoke cre­at­ed that op­por­tu­ni­ty. The wit­ness lat­er drew the lay­out of the de­ten­tion cen­tre and walked Guardian Me­dia through the es­cape step by step. Guardian Me­dia used that sketch to pre­pare the re­con­struc­tion.

“Two of­fi­cers in­side open­ing the gate to go and check on some­thing. And they pushed through, forced the of­fi­cers in and pushed them to the ground and made their way out.”

The men then rushed through a nar­row cor­ri­dor.

“Re­mem­ber, a bunch of peo­ple com­ing at you down a cor­ri­dor a lit­tle wider than this,” the staff mem­ber said, stretch­ing both hands to show the width. “It’s dif­fi­cult for you to stop.”

The staff mem­ber said while the breach was not the first es­cape from the de­ten­tion cen­tre, it was “the largest.”

Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia it is in­ves­ti­gat­ing who launched the es­cape, in­ter­view­ing staff and tak­ing state­ments. Guardian Me­dia al­so un­der­stands one de­ten­tion of­fi­cer suf­fered an in­jury to a hand dur­ing the in­ci­dent.

Po­lice iden­ti­fied those who es­caped as Roimer Emilio Reyes Du­ran, Edin­son Jose Mon­roy, Fe­lix Daniel Lei­ba Es­panol, Edin­son Maltin Al­cala Larosa, Car­los Ed­uar­do Ri­vas Lu­go, Rafael En­rique Mar­tinez, Jose Gre­go­rio Me­len­dez Lopez, Miguel An­to­nio Bra­vo Col­menares, Jo­han Rafael Ve­lasquez, Ronald Jose Quin­tero Ro­jas, Jose Manuel Valero, Jose Gre­go­rio Quin­tero, Jose An­to­nio Alviarez and An­der­son Jose Vil­lar­roel.

Po­lice lat­er said sev­en of the 14 men had been re­cap­tured: Edin­son Maltin Al­cala Larosa, Edin­son Jose Mon­roy, Fe­lix Daniel Lei­ba Es­panol, Jo­han Rafael Ve­lasquez, Jose An­to­nio Alviarez, Jose Gre­go­rio Me­len­dez Lopez and Miguel An­to­nio Bra­vo Col­menares.

The re­main­ing sev­en were still at large up to last Fri­day.

The Aripo Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre is an ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ty that holds peo­ple await­ing de­por­ta­tion or the out­come of im­mi­gra­tion pro­ceed­ings. The com­pound has sep­a­rate male and fe­male hous­ing units and was built to ac­com­mo­date about 150 de­tainees.

An in­ter­nal reg­is­ter ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia list­ed 89 de­tainees—65 men and 24 women—on June 11 this year.

Con­cerns over fa­cil­i­ty

The es­cape has al­so turned at­ten­tion to the de­ten­tion cen­tre’s se­cu­ri­ty, in­clud­ing planned up­grades, re­peat­ed com­plaints about staffing and equip­ment, and ques­tions about whether key works were com­plet­ed be­fore the breach.

The Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny’s (NID­CO) had sev­en projects list­ed for the de­ten­tion cen­tre for fis­cal 2025-2026.

While four projects were ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed in the first half of the year, Guardian Me­dia could find no ev­i­dence that they were com­plet­ed. Among them were: the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the seg­re­ga­tion area, to be com­plet­ed by April 30; the con­struc­tion of an emer­gency ex­it, ac­cess road and guard hut with a traf­fic arm by May 30; and the in­stal­la­tion of a se­cu­ri­ty ceil­ing over in­ter­nal recre­ation ar­eas by Ju­ly 6.

A se­nior NID­CO of­fi­cial, who did not wish to be named, told Guardian Me­dia the on­ly work re­called at the de­ten­tion cen­tre was fenc­ing com­plet­ed sev­er­al years ago and said no in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty works were known.

With re­gard to staffing, the source said that there are more peo­ple than of­fi­cers. “The bench­mark was up to 50 for the staff that it has. It was no longer 50, it’s 60 and 70.”

Im­mi­gra­tion has not con­firmed whether 50 was an of­fi­cial staffing bench­mark. Guardian Me­dia ob­tained a copy of the de­ten­tion cen­tre’s June 11, 2026 de­ten­tion ledger. The ledger records every per­son ad­mit­ted to the fa­cil­i­ty and in­cludes de­tails such as ar­rival dates.

It list­ed 89 de­tainees, while the staff mem­ber said about 90 peo­ple were be­ing held when the es­cape oc­curred.

There is an­oth­er press­ing is­sue that the cen­tre faces: the abuse of med­ical iso­la­tion, which was orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed for de­tainees who are ill.

The wit­ness al­so al­leged it was some­times used when there were too few of­fi­cers on du­ty.

“When staff is short, they use iso­la­tion to cov­er them­selves. That is why you would see 10, 20 peo­ple in med­ical iso­la­tion.”

“That is used to keep the in­mates in an or­der, but it al­so frus­trates them. The iso­la­tion is for days.”

Guardian Me­dia asked a for­mer Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer about the prac­tice and was told women may be placed in med­ical iso­la­tion if they are ill or preg­nant. The for­mer of­fi­cial said it was alarm­ing that 15 of the 24 women list­ed in the ledger were un­der med­ical iso­la­tion.

The de­ten­tion cen­tre’s June 11 de­ten­tion ledger record­ed 15 of the 24 women as be­ing un­der “med­ical iso­la­tion” on that date.

The ledger does not state why each woman was placed in med­ical iso­la­tion.

The IDC wit­ness al­so de­scribed two dif­fer­ent rea­sons de­tainees had in­jured them­selves in the past.

In one, de­tainees al­leged­ly in­jured them­selves in the hope of be­ing tak­en to hos­pi­tal and find­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to es­cape.

“Some of these peo­ple, like years gone by, some cut them­selves. Just to go to the hos­pi­tal so that they will be able to be out­side, that they can get, you know, an op­por­tu­ni­ty to es­cape. That’s what they’re look­ing at.”

The wit­ness said there had al­so been in­ci­dents in which de­tainees used self-harm.

“They cut be­hind the an­kles, that kind of thing. They cut the wrists.”

The wit­ness said the in­ci­dents some­times in­volved sev­er­al de­tainees at once.

“The most we see is sev­en of them, I’m telling you. Not on­ly men are do­ing it. Fe­males are do­ing it. And they’re com­mu­ni­cat­ing be­cause they’re shout­ing at each oth­er.”

The wit­ness al­so de­scribed se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns around the com­pound.

“It has no lights. The light­ing sys­tem is pa­thet­ic.”

The con­cerns ex­tend­ed to equip­ment is­sued to de­ten­tion of­fi­cers.

“…No pep­per spray, no is­sued tasers, no prop­er ba­tons. We are like sit­ting ducks.”

Asked whether de­ten­tion of­fi­cers need­ed firearms, the wit­ness replied: “Yeah, we need weapons.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Draft Es­ti­mates of De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme Ex­pen­di­ture, 2026, $3 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for the up­grade of the Aripo Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre. The same records show ac­tu­al ex­pen­di­ture of $309,932 in 2024, a $1.5 mil­lion es­ti­mate for 2025 and a re­vised 2025 es­ti­mate of $400,000. The project was trans­ferred from the for­mer Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

In Feb­ru­ary this year, re­tired IDC of­fi­cers said at least 38 for­mer work­ers were still wait­ing for gra­tu­ity pay­ments years af­ter their con­tracts end­ed. Some said they had been wait­ing be­tween three and six years. At the time, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der ac­knowl­edged de­te­ri­o­rat­ing work­ing con­di­tions and low morale and said the con­cerns were be­ing as­sessed.

At­tempts to con­tact Alexan­der and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Wayne Sturge for an up­date on this com­mit­ment were un­suc­cess­ful

Years ear­li­er, Par­lia­ment had al­so linked staffing short­ages to the length of time peo­ple spent in im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion.

Warn­ings be­fore the es­cape

A 2019 re­port by Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Hu­man Rights, Equal­i­ty and Di­ver­si­ty record­ed one case in which a de­tainee was held for “four years and eight months.” The com­mit­tee al­so not­ed “the link­age be­tween in­creased staffing and the de­creased length of time in de­ten­tion” and rec­om­mend­ed that va­cant con­tract posts be filled by June 2019.

In De­cem­ber 2021, Denise Pitch­er of the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights and Gise­le Bon­ni­ci, the In­ter­na­tion­al De­ten­tion Coali­tion’s Amer­i­c­as re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tor, wrote that de­tainees de­scribed con­di­tions at Aripo as “se­vere­ly un­san­i­tary and in­hu­mane” and said some were be­ing held for “months and even years.” They al­so iden­ti­fied the lack of in­de­pen­dent mon­i­tor­ing as a ma­jor con­cern.

The con­cerns were echoed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Com­mit­tee in Oc­to­ber 2023. The com­mit­tee said it was “deeply con­cerned” that peo­ple, in­clud­ing chil­dren, were be­ing held in im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods. It said de­ten­tion should be “rea­son­able, nec­es­sary and pro­por­tion­ate” and called for “in­de­pen­dent, reg­u­lar and un­hin­dered ac­cess” to im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties.

Man­hunts still on­go­ing?

The Ju­ly 18 es­cape has al­so placed re­newed at­ten­tion on a se­ries of ear­li­er es­capes from the Aripo Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre, sev­er­al of which were nev­er pub­licly brought to a doc­u­ment­ed end.

Guardian Me­dia’s re­view of re­ports dat­ing back to 2014 found at least sev­en sep­a­rate es­cape in­ci­dents in­volv­ing 47 de­tainees. Pub­lic re­ports con­firmed that some were re­cap­tured or sur­ren­dered. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia found no lat­er pub­lic ac­count­ing show­ing what be­came of every de­tainee who es­caped.

The IDC wit­ness claimed some de­tainees who es­caped years ago re­main on the run.

“Some still on the want­ed list be­cause there still is a list out there that peo­ple are still want­ed.”

Guardian Me­dia asked DCP Op­er­a­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, how many de­tainees who es­caped from the Aripo Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre re­main at large, who main­tains the want­ed list, whether search­es re­main ac­tive and what pro­to­col is fol­lowed af­ter an im­mi­gra­tion de­tainee es­capes. Mar­tin asked that the ques­tions be sent by What­sApp and said she would re­spond. No re­sponse had been re­ceived up to last Fri­day.

At­tempts to con­tact the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer were un­suc­cess­ful.

On June 24, 2025, five Venezue­lan de­tainees es­caped through a hole cut in the gal­vanised roof over the recre­ation area. Po­lice iden­ti­fied them as Chris­t­ian Jose Rivero Pa­rades, Leirz­er Omar Meza Font, Samuel Ed­uar­do Gon­za­lez Ro­driguez, Miguel Sanchez and Jhonatan Je­sus Car­reno.

Rivero Pa­rades, Gon­za­lez Ro­driguez and Car­reno were re­cap­tured that night. The last pub­lic up­date found by Guardian Me­dia said Leirz­er Omar Meza Font and Miguel Sanchez re­mained at large. No lat­er pub­lic re­port con­firm­ing their re­cap­ture was found.

Five months lat­er, on No­vem­ber 20, 2025, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der vis­it­ed the de­ten­tion cen­tre and said the roof would be re­paired. Re­call­ing the es­cape, he told Guardian Me­dia: “I un­der­stand that five per­sons es­caped; they held two or three of them and nev­er saw the rest.”

The gaps in the pub­lic record ex­tend fur­ther back.

In De­cem­ber 2014, Grena­di­an Dick­ey Ama­da, Bar­ba­di­an Rom­mel Omar Payne, Niger­ian Prince Hen­ry Amalu and Ja­maican Je­re­my Nel­son es­caped. Nel­son sur­ren­dered on De­cem­ber 21. A Guardian Me­dia re­port pub­lished four years lat­er said Ama­da, Payne and Amalu “were nev­er re­cap­tured.”

Five de­tainees es­caped again on De­cem­ber 20, 2018. Ja­maican Kr­ish­na Bai­ley, Guyanese Ryan Badal and Venezue­lans Rod­ney Noel Reyes Men­doza, Jose Luis Ramirez Yanez and Luis Car­los Si­fontes fled the cen­tre. Badal was re­cap­tured in Gas­par­il­lo on Jan­u­ary 14, 2019. A March 2019 re­port re­newed the ap­peal for the oth­er four.

The June ledger showed Rod­ney Noel Reyes Men­doza had re­turned to the de­ten­tion cen­tre, with a last ar­rival date of Au­gust 1, 2025. Guardian Me­dia found no pub­lic re­port ex­plain­ing when or how he was re­turned to cus­tody. No lat­er pub­lic out­come was found for Bai­ley, Ramirez Yanez or Si­fontes.

The pat­tern con­tin­ued in 2019.

Jose Acos­ta Nor­ie­ga and Dar­wis An­ton Ro­driguez Batista were dis­cov­ered miss­ing on Feb­ru­ary 28.

Five more de­tainees were dis­cov­ered miss­ing on April 2. They were Chi­nese na­tion­al Canying Yang and Venezue­lans Jose Leon Romero, Roni Jose Tor­res, Cezar Ale­jan­dre Moreno Ce­de­no and Miguel Fi­del Ovid.

On Ju­ly 10, an­oth­er 12 de­tainees es­caped af­ter two chain-link fences were cut dur­ing the air­ing pe­ri­od. Char­lie Perez Jose and Clau­dio Flo­res were re­cap­tured that night. Grena­di­an Rayan Phillip Bowen was ar­rest­ed a month lat­er but es­caped again from the foren­sic ward at St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal days af­ter­wards. The fol­low­ing day, po­lice said Bowen and nine oth­er es­capees were still be­ing sought.

Guardian Me­dia found no lat­er pub­lic re­port con­firm­ing that every de­tainee who es­caped dur­ing the Feb­ru­ary, April and Ju­ly 2019 in­ci­dents was even­tu­al­ly re­cap­tured, de­port­ed or oth­er­wise lo­cat­ed.

Court ap­pear­ance

Four prison es­capees were sen­tenced to hard labour on Fri­day af­ter plead­ing guilty to es­cap­ing law­ful cus­tody be­fore the High Court.

The men were part of a group of 14 who es­caped cus­tody from the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre on Ju­ly 18.

The men ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Singh Phillip in High Court North A, where the charges were laid by W/Ag In­sp Ra­mai.

Those sen­tenced were:

Edin­son La Rosa, who was sen­tenced to 10 months’ hard labour. He has five pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions.

Luis Fer­min, who was sen­tenced to nine months’ hard labour.

Jose Manuel, who was sen­tenced to one year of hard labour. He al­so has three mat­ters pend­ing be­fore the court.

Rafi Fawaz Mo­hammed, who was sen­tenced to 15 months’ hard labour. He has 11 pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions and sev­en pend­ing mat­ters.

Mean­while, three oth­er de­tainees are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore High Court on Mon­day to an­swer charges.