Family members and neighbours have identified two men from Trinidad and Tobago who are believed to be among six people killed in a US airstrike on a boat allegedly transporting drugs from Venezuela.
Burnley told AFP by phone that people her family knew in Venezuela “told them he was on the boat”.
Burnley said her son was planning to return to Trinidad and Tobago after spending three months with family in Venezuela, just 6.8 miles (11km) away.
At least 27 people have been killed so far in such attacks off the coast of Venezuela, which the Trump administration says are necessary to protect the United States from narcotics smuggled from Venezuela.
Instead of their usual route, heading west toward Venezuela, fishers said they now head east, staying close to the coast of Trinidad.
In a US airstrike on a boat suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela, two men from Trinidad and Tobago have been identified by family members and neighbors as part of the six people killed.
Donald Trump declared on Tuesday that the strike in international waters had killed six “narcoterrorists” and that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics” and that it was “associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks,” but he did not provide any supporting evidence.
The Guardian was informed by residents of the north coast fishing village of Las Cuevas that two locals, Chad “Charpo” Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, were on the submerged vessel, although Trinidad police stated they were still verifying whether Trinidadians were among the dead.
Samaroo served time for his involvement in the 2009 murder of a street vendor before being released from prison in 2021.
In an interview with local media, Joseph’s mother, Lenore Burnley, bemoaned the lack of a body to bury and stated that her 26-year-old son was not involved in drug use. “I trust God with everything,” she declared.
People her family knew in Venezuela “told them he was on the boat,” Burnley told AFP over the phone.
If you see a boat, you are required by maritime law to stop it and intercept it rather than simply blowing it up. That is our maritime law in Trinidad, and I believe that every human being, including fishermen, is aware of it,” she said.
After three months with family in Venezuela, which is only 6 o’8 miles (11 km) away, Burnley said her son was planning to return to Trinidad and Tobago for his next trip.
Joseph’s grandmother, Christine Clement, referred to the attack as “wickedness” and denied any involvement in human trafficking.
The Trump administration claims that these attacks are required to safeguard the United States from drugs smuggled from Venezuela, and they have killed at least 27 people off the coast of Venezuela so far.
The Guardian was informed last month by Las Cuevas fishermen that they were worried about getting caught in the crossfire of Trump’s “war on drugs” in the area. Fishermen reported that they now travel east, staying near the Trinidad coast, rather than west, as they used to, toward Venezuela.
Since then, the US has increased the scope of its mission, according to a Thursday Washington Post article, with elite special operations aviation unit helicopters training in the area.
Earlier, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, told local journalists that she had “no sympathy for traffickers” and that the US military should “kill them all violently.” She also stated that she strongly supported a US strike on a drug vessel based in Venezuela. She prayed for divine protection for the US personnel participating in the military mission and added that it would lessen violence in the area.
The US military’s actions, however, have been characterized by other Caribbean leaders as a danger to regional peace and security.
After Grenada’s ministry of foreign affairs confirmed it was closely examining a request from the United States for the “temporary installation of radar equipment and associated technical personnel,” Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, made it clear that his nation had no interest in hosting foreign military installations.
