KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Un­ver­i­fied re­ports about the where­abouts of Her­ralal Cooblal and three oth­er fish­er­men are caus­ing pain and con­fu­sion to Cooblal’s son, Anil, and oth­er mem­bers of his fam­i­ly.

Nine days ago, Cooblal, 54, Rishi Kem­chan, 38, Andy George, and an­oth­er fish­er­man known on­ly as Tall Man, left the Guayagua­yare Fish­ing De­pot for a fish­ing trip near the man­groves on Venezuela’s north coast.

Cooblal’s boat, Benom 2, was found cap­sized in a Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Ltd off­shore field near Ce­dros on Sun­day but there were no signs of the four fish­er­men. How­ev­er, Anil be­lieves they are still alive.

“We have been look­ing and have not come across any­thing. So far, we just got the boat and the en­gine,’ he said.

“We are get­ting a lot of mis­lead­ing in­for­ma­tion. Some peo­ple are say­ing that they are in Venezuela. I am not too sure if they are in Venezuela. Some peo­ple say they are on Sol­da­do Rock, some peo­ple say they washed ashore, some peo­ple said they were kid­napped. I just do not know what to be­lieve again,” he said.

Cooblal’s rel­a­tives and oth­er fish­er­men have been search­ing Trinidad’s south coast, es­pe­cial­ly around Ica­cos and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Ltd’s south west fields.

Anil said that if the men had drowned, their bod­ies should have sur­faced by now. He said the Coast Guard con­tact­ed his fam­i­ly ask­ing for in­for­ma­tion about the ves­sel.

“I do not feel like any­thing is wrong with him. I feel that he is still there, I still have that hope,” he said.

“From the time they said the in­ci­dent took place, to­day would make it five days they were in the wa­ter. I know if they are in the wa­ter, there will be a lim­it­ed time, but we searched the en­tire area and have not seen any­body. That means they are some­where on a hard sur­face.”

In the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne said lo­cal au­thor­i­ties had con­tact­ed their Venezue­lan coun­ter­parts, made re­quests and pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion in ac­cor­dance with mar­itime pro­to­cols.

Browne said it was an on­go­ing mat­ter and search­es are un­der­way.

“All avail­able means of as­sis­tance are pur­sued as guid­ed by the Coast Guard of Trinidad & To­ba­go,” he said.

UNC sen­a­tor Wade Mark in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day asked that apart from the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties, if the US or oth­er coun­tries will al­so be asked to as­sist in the search. Browne said all avail­able means of as­sis­tance are be­ing pur­sued and they are be­ing guid­ed by the T&T Coast Guard. Browne said this was an on­go­ing search but he could not give the lat­est sta­tus on it and re­ferred any query to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.