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Trinidadian officers opened fire on the migrant boat; dead baby

CARACAS, VENEZUELA – A Venezuelan baby died and his mother was injured over the weekend when Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard officers opened fire on a boat carrying migrants, the Caribbean national government said.

Prime Minister Keith Rowley said in a statement Sunday the shooting occurred Saturday during “security operations” at sea involving the Coast Guard and traffickers. The agency in a press release said officers fired at the ship’s engine in self-defense after it was repeatedly ordered to stop and attempt to ram the Coast Guard vessel.

“The ship eventually stopped and it was only later that it was discovered that there were illegal migrants on board that were still hiding and therefore were not seen before,” according to the Coast Guard. The mother then told officers she was bleeding and the baby was “found unresponsive.”

The agency said the woman was stable and was later transported to the hospital. Her condition was not immediately known on Monday. The agency did not say how the baby died.

Venezuela has been going through a profound political, social and economic crisis for many years, due to the drop in oil prices over the last decade and the mismanagement of socialist governments. Millions of people have fallen into poverty, initially due to severe shortages of food and medicine, then unable to buy them as stores re-stocked due to dwindling purchasing power. The monthly minimum wage is about $2, inflation continues to rise.

The crisis has caused people to migrate. The United Nations estimates more than 6 million Venezuelans have fled the country in recent years, more than 10% of the population.

Millions have emigrated to neighboring Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, but the number of Venezuelans making the arduous journey further north in search of refuge in the US is growing. In December, US authorities caught Venezuelans illegally crossing the Mexican border nearly 25,000 times, the second highest nationality after Mexicans. This has more than doubled from just three months earlier and is up from just about 200 a year earlier.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that around 35,000 Venezuelans have immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago in recent years, but humanitarian groups say the number has risen to nearly 40,000 in recent months.

A group of UN agencies on Monday in a statement said they were “deeply saddened” by Saturday’s events.

“No migrant child has to die, whether traveling with their parents or alone,” said regional resident Jean Gough. “Two in three Venezuelans on the move are women. women and children. This tragic event is a stark reminder that they are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. They need special care, protection and safety – anywhere and anytime.”

Juan Guaido, leader of the US-backed Venezuelan opposition, on Twitter described the shooting as “absurd”, while David Smolansky, commissioner of the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States for the refugee crisis refugees and migrants in Venezuela, calling on Trinidad and Tobago to investigate the situation.

With the help of Norwegian diplomats, representatives from the opposition and President Nicolas Maduro’s government held talks last year in Mexico City in an attempt to find a way out of the crisis. crisis of their country. But negotiations were suspended in October after a key Maduro ally was extradited to the US.

United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq on Monday said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on both sides to resume dialogue.

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