SASCHA WIL­SON

Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) is again call­ing for Gov­ern­ment to take ur­gent mea­sures to pro­tect fish­er­folk. This fol­lows an in­ci­dent which has left a fish­er­man fight­ing for his life af­ter he was at­tacked by pi­rates in the seas off Ica­cos.

Pe­ter Granger, 37, of La Lune, Moru­ga, was shot in the back at around 10 am last Wednes­day as he tried to es­cape from Span­ish-speak­ing pi­rates. Luck­i­ly, the shots fired by the pi­rates missed Granger’s broth­er, Christo­pher, who was able to steer the boat to Ica­cos beach.

Last month, a group of fish­er­men were robbed of their ves­sels and thrown over­board in­to the Gulf of Paria off Car­li Bay. Sev­en of them went miss­ing but on­ly five bod­ies were re­cov­ered.

Com­ment­ing on the at­tack on Granger, FFOS pres­i­dent Gary Aboud said: “The Coast Guard not there. The radars that Mr Young had said are work­ing are not there. The in­ter­cep­tors which were promised since last year by Mr Young are not there. There is no se­cu­ri­ty at sea and our men are at like sit­ting ducks.”

He said they are yet to re­ceive a re­sponse from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to their pro­pos­al which was done in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Car­li Bay, Clax­ton Bay and Or­ange Val­ley com­mu­ni­ties, fish­ing as­so­ci­a­tions and con­cerned rel­a­tives of the fish­er­folk and en­dorsed by se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers and Coast Guard com­man­ders.

It was sent to Young two weeks ago and to the prime min­is­ter a few days ago.

Aboud com­plained: “We have not even had an ac­knowl­edge­ment. Our men are be­ing at­tacked, our seas are wide open, our bor­ders are open. The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty said he is build­ing a reg­i­ment base in Moru­ga but how can a reg­i­ment base re­spond to crime at sea? It doesn’t make sense and all we are ask­ing is that the Prime Min­is­ter have an em­brac­ing all-in­clu­sive ap­proach to his cit­i­zens.

“Be­cause our mem­bers are from Clax­ton Bay, Car­li Bay and Or­ange Val­ley doesn’t mean that they are not en­ti­tled to sit at the ban­quet ta­ble and to de­cide and have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to con­struc­tive de­ci­sions. All we are ask­ing the prime min­is­ter to do is to act and to in­clude us in his ac­tions, but we feel that we are be­ing left out and locked out. We can­not af­ford to lose an­oth­er man.”

Granger is ward­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in se­ri­ous con­di­tion.