Des­per­ate to es­cape be­ing caught by the po­lice, more than 50 Venezue­lan women and their chil­dren are hid­ing in the forests of Ica­cos, feed­ing off man­goes and co­conuts.

By dusk, when the mos­qui­toes, gnats and sand­flies de­scend to feed, the hun­gry women stum­ble out of the forests in search of food, hold­ing their chil­dren pro­tec­tive­ly around them.

Guardian Me­dia went in search of the bush fam­i­lies on Thurs­day and saw ev­i­dence of their ex­is­tence. Fresh foot tracks were seen in the for­est lead­ing to the sea and a knap­sack was spot­ted on the road.

A team of of­fi­cers from the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion were seen search­ing in a road lead­ing to the beach near Gal­far. It is an area ac­ces­si­ble on­ly through the bumpy Gran Chemin vil­lage in Ica­cos where an old colo­nial road once broke off leav­ing the land ex­posed to the sea.

These children from a remote village in La Boquita were among the few who were taken in by Icacos residents. Villagers say more than 50 children and women are living off coconuts and mangoes in the forested parts of Icacos. Photo by Kristian De Silva.

Vil­lager Rox­anne Williams who was seen shred­ding co­conut leaves to make co­coyea brooms con­firmed that she had seen the home­less for­est chil­dren.

"It is so sad see­ing them. I can­not imag­ine how they are liv­ing in there where there are snakes and all kinds of an­i­mals," she said.Williams added, "We es­ti­mate that about 300 of them came up here over the past few days. On Wednes­day I saw one woman who had a ba­by not old­er than a year. The oth­er child was about four. They were look­ing for food. They run across the road when they saw me."

She said when­ev­er the Venezue­lans see the po­lice, Cus­toms or Im­mi­gra­tion, they would run in the bush­es and hide.

An­oth­er vil­lager Can­dy Ed­wards said he es­ti­mat­ed there were still about 50 Venezue­lans hid­ing in the bush­es and aban­doned co­conut es­tates in Ica­cos.

"Some of those who came be­fore had a con­tact to take them to var­i­ous places to work but many who are com­ing now have no mon­ey, no pos­ses­sions and nowhere to go," Ed­wards said.

Hav­ing been im­pris­oned in Venezuela for 52 days af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed by the Guardia Na­cional last year, Ed­wards said the last thing he want­ed was to be in Venezuela.

You can read the full ver­sion of this re­port in Fri­day's Trinidad Guardian.