Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A video show­ing Erin fish­er­man Daniel Abra­ham be­ing tied and beat­en on the ground by Venezue­lan men has been sent to his fam­i­ly, in­ten­si­fy­ing fears for him and two oth­er fish­er­men who dis­ap­peared and were pos­si­bly kid­napped for ran­som in Venezuela. Rel­a­tives say the cap­tors are de­mand­ing US$40,000 for the men's re­lease. Fish­er­man Win­ton Taitt said US$18,000 was lat­er de­mand­ed.

Erin po­lice say they have no of­fi­cial re­port. How­ev­er, Abra­ham's moth­er, Tr­isha Her­bert, ques­tioned why Abra­ham left to fish with two men he bare­ly knew. The cir­cum­stances of the trio's dis­ap­pear­ance are un­clear, and fish­er­men at Erin said they were con­cerned, es­pe­cial­ly since ten­sions are es­ca­lat­ing over on­go­ing U.S. airstrikes on sus­pect­ed drug-smug­gling ves­sels.

The dis­ap­pear­ance al­so fol­lows a warn­ing months ear­li­er from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said that na­tion­als in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty in Venezue­lan wa­ters would re­ceive no state in­ter­ven­tion if de­tained. To date, no miss­ing per­sons re­port or po­lice com­plaint has been filed, and rel­a­tives and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are call­ing on the gov­ern­ment and Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador Al­varo Sanchez Cordero to in­ter­vene.