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VENEZUELA-MIGRATION-ACCIDENT
Sunken Venezuelan migrant boat ‘overloaded’: survivor
CUMANA, Venezuela, April 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A fishing vessel that sank
while carrying Venezuelan migrants to Trinidad and Tobago was overloaded, a
survivor said Friday as the search continued for 22 people still missing.
The boat sank in the southern Caribbean early Wednesday with 33 people
aboard, nine of whom were plucked from the sea by fishermen, an opposition
lawmaker said.
“There were too many passengers,” 22-year-old survivor Yusbreilys Merchan
said Friday after she was taken ashore.
The woman said she had boarded the boat in the coastal town of Guiria in
northeastern Sucre state.
“After we left, one of the engines had problems, but we insisted that we
keep going,” she said.
When the vessel reached the area of Patos island, lying some four nautical
miles off the coast, she said, “one of the motors stopped and the boat
started to take on water.”
A video released by her family showed the visibly exhausted woman wrapped
in a blanket, being brought back ashore aboard a small power boat. She had
been rescued by her husband from the sea.
Merchan is one of nine people known to have survived, according to local
opposition lawmaker Robert Alcala.
Two bodies, including that of a 16-year-old girl, have been recovered, he
said.
Trinidad and Tobago coastguard and local fishermen were searching for
another 22 believed to be still missing, he said. Venezuelan authorities have
not reported the shipwreck.
According to Alcala, the vessel ship set sail Tuesday night from Guiria
with 25 people on board, before picking up more passengers in the nearby town
of Rio Salado.
Venezuela is in the midst of a grave economic and political crisis. The
United Nations estimates some 2.7 million have emigrated since 2015.
The opposition says around 60,000 Venezuelans have taken refuge in
Trinidad and Tobago, among the closest of the Caribbean islands.
UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement issued at its Geneva
headquarters on Friday that the tragedy “highlights the extreme risks faced
by refugees and migrants in their travels by sea and other transboundary
movements, while showing the desperation of those who are forced to flee
their homes.”
BSS/AFP/SSS/0833 hrs