RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A dis­turb­ing video has in­ten­si­fied fear in the Erin fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty, show­ing fish­er­man Daniel Abra­ham ly­ing on the ground while be­ing beat­en—days af­ter he and two oth­er men were al­leged­ly kid­napped by Span­ish-speak­ing at­tack­ers.

The video was sent di­rect­ly to Abra­ham’s fam­i­ly. He and the two oth­er fish­er­men, whose iden­ti­ties re­main un­known, have been miss­ing since Thurs­day night when they went out to fish.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Erin Beach, fish­er­man Win­ton Taitt said he had heard of a ran­som de­mand of US$18,000, though a rel­a­tive lat­er con­firmed the sum was US$40,000. The miss­ing boat was re­port­ed­ly re­cov­ered in Venezue­lan wa­ters.

“This in­ci­dent shows that as fish­er­men, you have to know what you’re do­ing, take your time, and be cau­tious,” Taitt said. He added that with Christ­mas ap­proach­ing, risks at sea are in­creas­ing.

“Peo­ple want things, so you have to be scep­ti­cal when you go out there. Don’t take chances,” he warned.

An­oth­er fish­er­man, Cur­tis Charles, said ru­mours sug­gest­ed the miss­ing ves­sel had been bor­rowed.

“This is a dif­fer­ent time now. All kinds of things are hap­pen­ing in these wa­ters,” he said.

Abra­ham’s moth­er, Tri­cia Her­bert, told Guardian Me­dia she did not know the two men her son was with and was un­sure why he would go to sea with peo­ple he bare­ly knew.

A rel­a­tive, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said the cap­tors sent a one-view video show­ing Abra­ham tied up and beat­en by Span­ish-speak­ing men. A sec­ond video re­port­ed­ly showed him be­ing as­sault­ed by a sin­gle man.

The rel­a­tive added that the Coast Guard and Min­istry of Fish­eries rarely as­sist fish­er­men kid­napped by Venezue­lan pi­rates.

“For years this has been hap­pen­ing. Fish­er­men of­ten have to pay ran­som for them­selves,” the rel­a­tive said.

An­oth­er source, al­so anony­mous, said the T&T Coast Guard had pre­vent­ed fish­er­men from cross­ing in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters, which are vis­i­ble from Erin and known for abun­dant catch­es.

Ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States have es­ca­lat­ed fol­low­ing US airstrikes on sus­pect­ed drug-run­ning ves­sels in Caribbean wa­ters, in­clud­ing a No­vem­ber 10 strike that killed four peo­ple.

These de­vel­op­ments came months af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned cit­i­zens en­gaged in il­le­gal op­er­a­tions in Venezue­lan wa­ters that the State would not in­ter­vene if they were de­tained or harmed.

Erin Po­lice told Guardian Me­dia that no of­fi­cial miss­ing per­son re­port has yet been filed by rel­a­tives.