By Fabiola Sanchez | Associated Press
Most migrants travel by land into Colombia or Brazil but fishing boats sometimes smuggle them to nearby Caribbean islands.
CARACAS, Venezuela — As a small boat packed with Venezuelans capsized in Caribbean coastal waters this week, Yubreilys Merchán found herself with seconds to react.
In a desperate bid to survive, the 23-year-old hairdresser stripped off her clothes to lighten her weight before plunging into the water amid cries of panic. Then, she began swimming toward a nearby island, a skill she learned from her mother as a child.
When she and another companion finally reached a rocky coast in the middle of the night, they clambered over boulders and collapsed in an embrace, crying with relief after realizing they were safe.
“That was a miracle, an incredible thing, like something out of a movie,” said Merchán’s mother, Luisa García, who related the episode in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday.
The traumatic experience of both survivors highlights the increasingly perilous risks that Venezuelans are taking to leave the country after years of dire economic conditions.
While the majority of Venezuelan migrants have traveled by land into neighboring Colombia and Brazil, overloaded fishing boats sometimes smuggle people toward an uncertain future on nearby Caribbean islands. Some women turn to prostitution on arrival, according to Merchán’s mother, who lives in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
The wooden boat carrying her daughter and other Venezuelans, mostly women, was headed to Trinidad early Wednesday when it sank in strong waves near Venezuela’s Patos island, about 5 miles from a peninsula in the state of Sucre. Local fishermen rescued nine people and recovered the bodies of a man and a 16-year-old girl.
Another 23 passengers are missing in the deadliest accident involving a boatload of Venezuela migrants in years.
Venezuela’s civil protection agency said government vessels have launched a search for survivors in Bocas del Dragon, or Dragon’s Mouths, the straits separating the South American country from Trinidad.
But as the days passed, hopes that other passengers would be rescued appeared increasingly slim.
García waited for any news of her daughter for more than 24 hours. She used a local expression to describe her immense relief when Merchán’s husband called to tell her that the eldest of her three children was alive.
“My soul returned to my body,” said 44-year-old García.
Bron: Press Herald