RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice be­lieve that the de­com­posed re­mains of a body tan­gled in the thick un­der­brush of man­groves in Cocuina, Venezuela, could be one of the miss­ing Guayagua­yare fish­er­men.

On Fri­day, the rel­a­tives of the fish­er­men Heer­alal ‘Li­nus’ Kooblal, 54, from Grand La­goon, Ma­yaro; Rishi Khem­c­hand, 38; Andy ‘Tall­man’ George, 40; and the boat’s cap­tain, George Jo­tis called on For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne to as­sist them in ex­tend­ing their search to the north­ern part of Venezuela.

Ex­perts in­clud­ing those from the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team led by Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat have been ex­am­in­ing ar­eas where the men could have drift­ed.

Ramb­harat said the body was found south of Ica­cos and on the North­ern Venezue­lan coast­line. He said a ver­i­fi­ca­tion process will be launched to de­ter­mine the iden­ti­ty of the vic­tim.

A con­tact in Venezuela post­ed videos of a de­com­posed corpse crouched in the tidal swamps on the bor­ders of Cocuina. Of­fi­cials from the Cara­cas Em­bassy were ex­pect­ed to li­aise with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of T&T law en­force­ment and fam­i­ly mem­bers.

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray said the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter shared de­tails of the new search plan with Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds. He called for a thor­ough search in this man­grove ex­panse.

The fish­er­men’s ves­sel dis­ap­peared on Jan­u­ary 31 but was found cap­sized off Ce­dros near Venezuela on Feb­ru­ary 5.

Life jack­ets and res­cue rafts were miss­ing giv­ing rel­a­tives hope that they were all alive. It is be­lieved that the men drift­ed about 100 miles away from where they were fish­ing.

Their chances of sur­vival are grim and Ramb­harat said if it is con­firmed that the re­mains be­longed to one of the fish­er­men, then it was like­ly that the oth­ers would al­so have died at sea.