KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The search for miss­ing Venezue­lan mi­grant Nikol Lan­dae­ta en­tered its sixth day yes­ter­day as res­cuers combed an Ica­cos swamp in the hope of re­cov­er­ing the moth­er of two, who has been miss­ing since the pirogue she was trav­el­ling in cap­sized off the Erin coast last Sat­ur­day.

Mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team en­tered the swamp around noon as part of the lat­est phase of the re­cov­ery ef­fort. The op­er­a­tion was car­ried out in con­sul­ta­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard and timed to co­in­cide with low tide, al­low­ing res­cuers to ac­cess an area that is nor­mal­ly un­reach­able.

Hunters Search and Res­cue Team cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat told Guardian Me­dia that the en­trance to the swamp, where it meets the sea, could on­ly be reached dur­ing low tide. De­spite in­ter­mit­tent rain­fall in the coastal vil­lage, mem­bers of the search par­ty con­duct­ed an ex­ten­sive sweep of the area but found no sign of Lan­dae­ta.

Ramb­harat had pre­vi­ous­ly ex­plained that the Coast Guard and Air Guard joined the op­er­a­tion be­cause res­cuers be­lieved ocean cur­rents may have car­ried Lan­dae­ta be­yond Ica­cos Point to­wards the Sol­da­do oil­field.

He said the search would con­tin­ue as res­cuers pur­sued every pos­si­ble lead in the ef­fort to lo­cate Lan­dae­ta, who was last seen alive cling­ing to a fu­el tank af­ter the pirogue over­turned.

The pirogue, cap­tained by a Trinida­di­an known lo­cal­ly as “D Cop­per Man,” was car­ry­ing Lan­dae­ta and an­oth­er Venezue­lan mi­grant, Julio Perez, when it cap­sized short­ly af­ter leav­ing shore. The ves­sel was al­leged­ly trans­port­ing scrap cop­per weeks af­ter the Gov­ern­ment im­posed a one-year ban on its ex­port.

Re­ports in­di­cat­ed the pirogue cap­sized around 6 am off Ica­cos, leav­ing D Cop­per Man and Lan­dae­ta cling­ing to a fu­el tank as they drift­ed at sea. The cap­tain even­tu­al­ly left his pas­sen­gers and swam ashore near Con­stance Beach in Ica­cos. He alert­ed res­i­dents to the in­ci­dent be­fore leav­ing the area.

Hours lat­er, Ce­dros po­lice, Coast Guard and De­fence Force per­son­nel re­spond­ed to re­ports of a body washed ashore in Ica­cos. Perez was lat­er iden­ti­fied by mem­bers of the Venezue­lan mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty.

Since then, search teams have con­tin­ued op­er­a­tions at sea and along sec­tions of the Erin and Ica­cos coast­line in the hope of lo­cat­ing Lan­dae­ta. Al­though yes­ter­day’s op­er­a­tion did not re­sult in a re­cov­ery, Ramb­harat said the search would con­tin­ue as con­di­tions per­mit.

Ramb­harat, who has spo­ken with Lan­dae­ta’s rel­a­tives, said she went to the Ce­dros jet­ty ear­ly last Sat­ur­day morn­ing hop­ing to board a boat to Tu­cu­pi­ta. When that proved un­suc­cess­ful, she trav­elled to Erin, where the pirogue was prepar­ing to de­part with a Trinida­di­an cap­tain and Julio Perez.

“She had noth­ing to do with the fact that the ves­sel had cop­per on it. She ar­rived in the morn­ing and asked if the ves­sel was go­ing to Venezuela, and con­sent was giv­en for her to board the boat, I sus­pect af­ter pay­ing the trans­porta­tion fees,” Ramb­harat said.