Ot­to Car­ring­ton

and An­na-Lisa Paul

The Venezue­lan mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty in T&T is call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a shoot­ing at sea on Sun­day which left one-year-old Yaelvis San­toyo dead and his moth­er, Darielvis Sara­bia in hos­pi­tal nurs­ing a gun­shot wound.

The two were part of a group of mi­grants which in­clud­ed 17 adults and ten chil­dren that board­ed a pirogue in Tu­cu­pi­ta, bound for T&T.

How­ev­er, as the con­tin­gent en­tered lo­cal wa­ters dur­ing the wee hours on Feb­ru­ary 6, the TT Coast Guard re­port­ed­ly at­tempt­ed to in­ter­cept the ves­sel and force it to turn back to­wards Venezuela.

As of­fi­cers on board the TTS Scar­bor­ough re­spond­ed to the il­le­gal bor­der en­try at­tempt, the cap­tain of the ves­sel re­port­ed­ly sought to evade the coast guard even as it con­tin­ued head­ing to shore.

In a re­lease, the TTCG said, “All avail­able meth­ods were used in­clud­ing the use of the loud hail­er, ship’s horn search­light and flares, to try to get the sus­pect ves­sel to stop, how­ev­er, the ves­sel con­tin­ued to evade TTS Scar­bor­ough.”

The Coast Guard claimed warn­ing shots were fired in keep­ing with stan­dard pro­to­cols but the ves­sel did not stop, fol­low­ing which of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly shot at the pirogue’s en­gine.

Dur­ing the en­su­ing melee, San­toyo—who had been cra­dled to his moth­er’s chest, was dis­cov­ered un­re­spon­sive and bleed­ing from a gun­shot wound to the head, while Sara­bia was al­so in­jured.

A for­mer Coast Guard of­fi­cial said all re­ports so far in­di­cate that the Coast Guard ex­e­cut­ed their pro­to­cols cor­rect­ly, with the first be­ing the siren and light hail­ing the ves­sel to stop, fol­lowed by warn­ing shots to the stern and bow and then the en­gine to bring the ves­sel to a com­plete stop.

The of­fi­cial said these ma­noeu­vres are high risk and can lead to causal­i­ties and even death if the ves­sel does not ad­here to the com­mand to stop.

Con­flict­ing re­ports

Guardian Me­dia spoke to rel­a­tives of those aboard the ves­sel who are now de­tained at the He­li­port, Ch­aguara­mas.

Gabriel Mar­tinez said his moth­er, Les­bia Saaver­dra; his sis­ter, Ke­lielvus Ro­driguez; and his daugh­ter Bri­an­nelys Mar­tinez were on the ves­sel com­ing to Trinidad.

His sto­ry con­tra­dicts that of the Coast Guard as he claimed his fam­i­ly mes­saged him on Sat­ur­day night to say they were adrift off the coast of T&T, wait­ing for the tide to rise so they could ap­proach the beach, but that the Coast Guard had at­tempt­ed to cap­ture them and the boat cap­tain had tried to evade au­thor­i­ties —fol­low­ing which gun­shots were heard and it was dis­cov­ered that the ba­by and the woman were both shot.

Photo of Ya Elvis Santoyo and his mother Darie Elvis Eliagnis Sarabia with other children before they left Tucupita, Venezuela for Trinidad and Tobago.

Founder/Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, La Ca­sita His­pan­ic Cul­tur­al Cen­ter, An­dri­en­na Browne said, “Every­one is con­cerned about it. We are con­cerned as to what will hap­pen with these peo­ple and we have to arrange re­sources for those who are now de­tained at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port, and we are look­ing at the Gov­ern­ment at this time to help with food and med­ica­tion. As a com­mu­ni­ty and an or­gan­i­sa­tion we will al­so be seek­ing help for them from oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions.”

She said this group of mi­grants had faced ex­treme trau­ma as a child had been killed while the moth­er was in­jured and re­mained hos­pi­talised. Checks yes­ter­day re­vealed Sara­bia re­mained in a sta­ble con­di­tion at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal up to late yes­ter­day.

Browne said groups such as hers and oth­ers are will­ing to work with gov­ern­ment in these mat­ters.

Both Browne and Sofia Figueroa Leon, of the So­cial In­te­gra­tion Projects of the Caribbeans, said their re­spec­tive or­gan­i­sa­tions would do all they can to as­sist the fam­i­ly mem­bers who are res­i­dents in Trinidad.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the fa­ther has been liv­ing in Trinidad for the past four years, but his im­mi­grant sta­tus is not known.

A hu­man rights at­tor­ney res­i­dent in Cana­da, has al­so been li­ais­ing with the San­toyo fam­i­ly on be­half of Leon’s NGO.

The il­le­gal cross­ings by Venezue­lan mi­grants has been mag­ni­fied in the past few years as many are brav­ing the high seas in search of a bet­ter life due to eco­nom­ic hard­ships in Venezuela.

Brown said, “These peo­ple are risk­ing them­selves no mat­ter what, be­cause it is ei­ther they die here or they die in Venezuela.”

“It is hard to see and un­der­stand what these mi­grants are fac­ing…and I think we need to put our feet in their shoes and un­der­stand what they are fac­ing”, she added.

“Most Venezue­lans here now want to re­unite with their fam­i­lies and this is what we are fac­ing right now. This sit­u­a­tion is the same as a fam­i­ly took the chance to come across be­cause the fam­i­ly have op­por­tu­ni­ties here and they just want­ed to re­unite”.

UN­HCR deeply sad­dened

This lat­est in­ci­dent has sparked in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est and at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion .of the Unit­ed Na­tions Refugee Agency (UN­HCR); the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM); and UNICEF who said they are deeply sad­dened, “by news of the death of a ba­by dur­ing an in­ter­cep­tion at sea off the south-east coast of the is­land of Trinidad on Sun­day”.

Dr Ed­uar­do Stein, Joint Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of UN­HCR and IOM for Venezue­lan refugees and mi­grants said, “We are deeply sad­dened by this tragedy and con­vey our heart­felt con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and loved ones who are griev­ing this loss and a speedy re­cov­ery to the in­jured. No­body should have to lose their life in their search for safe­ty, pro­tec­tion and new op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

He added, “This in­ci­dent high­lights the plight faced by peo­ple on the move dur­ing des­per­ate and dan­ger­ous jour­neys to safe­ty.”

The Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child state all coun­tries must safe­guard the rights of all chil­dren on their ter­ri­to­ry, ir­re­spec­tive of their na­tion­al­i­ty or sta­tus.

Gabriel Martinez

UNICEF Re­gion­al Di­rec­tor for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Jean Gough said, “No mi­grant child should ever die, whether trav­el­ling with their par­ents or alone. No moth­er wants to put the lives of her chil­dren at risk on a small ship in the deep sea, un­less she has no oth­er op­tion.”

He added: “Two in three Venezue­lans on the move are women and chil­dren. This trag­ic event is a stark re­minder that they are the most vul­ner­a­ble among the vul­ner­a­ble. They de­serve spe­cial at­ten­tion, pro­tec­tion and safe­ty – any­where and any time.”