The 32 drowned people of Güiria that show the Venezuelan drama
FLORANTONIA SINGER - Caracas (elpais.com) The Venezuelan town buries more than thirty people on a journey to Trinidad and Tobago. There are still missingLast Wednesday night, with the duel in tow, the inhabitants of Güiria, in the coastal Venezuelan state of Sucre, protested. The day before they had already held a vigil. The next day they called a march through the town, which has buried 32 people. They drowned in a new shipwreck in the waters between Sucre, in the northeast of the country, and Trinidad and Tobago, one of the migration corridors of the Caribbean whose traffic has intensified with the deterioration of the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. Hunger has already driven 5.4 million people out of the country. Now, Güiria (40,000 inhabitants) cries and protests as he searches for his dead.
“Justice, justice!” Shouted a group of people in front of the headquarters of a military installation. It was a multiple demand. They asked for gasoline so that the fishermen could continue the search for the disappeared at sea, that what had happened be thoroughly investigated and more support from the Government to address the emergency. And they also demand from the Chavista leader, Nicolás Maduro, the freedom of Luis Martínez, the man who used to drive the ship that was shipwrecked, called My memory . He is the only one arrested in the case. Prosecutor Tarek William Saab accuses him of human trafficking and conspiracy.
Last Sunday the 6th, at 5:30 in the afternoon, it was not Luis Martínez —now under house arrest— who was at the helm of the ship. But eight of his relatives traveled there, including three children and a granddaughter, says Mary López, the fisherman's sister-in-law. “Here in Güiria things are ugly and everyone is looking for a way to leave. We don't even have gas to cook and everything is ten times more expensive here. Since we all have family in Trinidad, they were going to spend Christmas there with a sister. My two nephews used to go there and one of them was going to stay, because there is nothing to do here ”, tells EL PAÍS the woman, whose daughter also emigrated two years ago when she was unable to pay for a university degree. "How are they going to accuse Mr. Martínez if he sent his whole family in that boat?" Asks López.
There are several versions of what happened, a tragedy that has been reconstructed with imprecise data and information sailing from one coast to the other. And so far no survivors or witnesses have appeared who can clarify the doubts. The boat My memory left that Sunday,while Venezuela held a questioned parliamentary elections, with 19 people from the port of Güiria. On the way, these barges often pick up more passengers on the beaches before entering the open sea, that is, the precise number of passengers is not known. Some of the relatives who were waiting for them in Trinidad and Tobago say that the boat reached a beach on the Caribbean islands, where the migrants were first detained and then forced to return. According to this version, the shipwreck occurred during the voyage back to Venezuela.
In the last two years, the Trinidadian police have dealt with a heavy hand against Venezuelans. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) revealed this week that in November alone Trinidad and Tobago deported at least 200 people. Migrants are often detained and then deported in the same boat in which they arrived. That happened, for example, on November 22 with a group in which there were 16 children. And that was the hope of the relatives of the deceased of Güiria. That is, that they appeared at some point. "Everyone swore they were in prison, until the dead appeared," says Xioglimar Mata, who had neighbors and friends on the boat.
Seven days after setting sail, three bodies were found on a beach near Güiria. Throughout that day they found 11 others. The shipwreck was already a certainty. Then, five more corpses washed ashore; then nine more, and on Thursday afternoon, another. Between Friday and Saturday, three more. A total of 32 bodies buried last week. Two have not been identified yet, as they await the results of DNA tests. At least a dozen people are still missing. Another boat called My Refuge left that same night on December 6 with another group. In Güiria, some point out that the passengers of both rafts were returned from Trinidad and Tobago in a single ship, despite the excess of passengers, and with little fuel, which caused it to wreck. Others believe that those who traveled in one of the boats and are listed as missing are being held on the islands. But the Trinidadian authorities have denied that any of those ships reached their lands.
No wakeThe Venezuelan Prosecutor's Office affirms that the ship sank halfway, in the country's waters, and has also issued an arrest warrant for Mary López's two nephews, who are still missing. A commission of forensic doctors has been installed since Monday at the Güiria Coast Guard dock. In a tent they work on the analysis of the bodies. No one has had a wake. Every family has prayed for them at home.
Among the last corpses that the sea has brought, relatives say, some have appeared that are mutilated and others with a lower degree of decomposition than the first, which has unleashed speculation about the times of the shipwreck. Five days after the discovery of the first bodies, a police helicopter joined the search operation, which has been left in the hands of the fishermen themselves. “That night the sea was lonely because almost no one goes fishing because of the lack of gasoline. If a fisherman had been able to go out, he might have found them, ”adds López. Meanwhile, the family members only have a cry of pain, which is mixed with the protest.
"We feel without support"Since 2019 there have been 114 missing persons from five boats that left the coasts of Sucre and Nueva Esparta, in the northeast of Venezuela, and Falcón, in the northwest, according to Johnny Romero, spokesman for an organization that groups together the families of the victims . In those cases, not as many bodies were recovered and the disappeared came from different areas of the country. His relatives denounce trafficking networks that allegedly operate in complicity with officials. In this last shipwreck, all those who traveled were from Güiria, with families established in Trinidad and Tobago. “We are very saddened by what happened and because we feel without support. What Trinidad does is harassment, ”says Anyelith Sanvicente, who is still waiting for a cousin of hers who is among the missing travelers to appear alive.
A man in a cemetery where a shipwreck victim was buried in Trinidad and Tobago. YURI CORTEZ / AFP
