Relatives of the 38 missing people, including 35 Venezuelan migrants, whose whereabouts have been unknown since October 21st, 2023, after sailing on a boat that left the San Andrés archipelago in Colombia towards Central America, beg the authorities of the Colombian Red Cross and the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to help them find their loved ones.
Luz Dary Depablos / Correspondent lapatilla.com
They issued a statement directed to the authorities of the UN and the Colombian Red Cross, where they stated that of the 35 Venezuelans of whom there are no traces, at least 17 are minors including a baby who was only three months old.
These migrants planned to arrive in Nicaragua, to continue the journey by land to the United States.
The relatives indicate that they migrated in an irregular condition to Nicaragua, but they did not reach their destination last Sunday, October 22nd, as planned, and since then their whereabouts have been unknown.
In the statement they also mention that in the Colombian Caribbean area, where their loved ones allegedly disappeared, diverse crimes commonly occur such as robberies, assaults, and kidnappings against irregular migrants who transit the area.
Although they do not rule out a shipwreck, they consider that the conditions are not met, because of the large number of people traveling they assume that by this date there should already be traces to prove that this had occurred.
Nor do they rule out that they have been victims of some network or group of criminals, who have stripped them of their belongings, which is why they ask the authorities of Colombia and Nicaragua to carry out a search in the keys, islands and islets, as they point out that Similar cases have been recorded on other occasions and migrants have been stripped of their belongings and abandoned in Cayo Pescador or Cayo Albuquerque.
Likewise, they emphasized that a family member followed the GPS tracker of one of the missing people and after the last connection, the cell phone went to ground and since then they have lost communication.
Other relatives claim that they have seen their loved ones online through Facebook, but they do not respond, so they do not lose hope that they are alive.
Therefore, the relatives of the 38 missing persons presented a request for the UN authorities to activate their personnel and the corresponding protocols in each country when these cases are registered. This would motivate “the different governments to activate the international conventions of search and rescue of these missing people”.