Authorities from ten national security organizations of Colombia, together with representatives of the International Committee to ‘Support Relatives and Friends of Venezuelan Migrants Disappeared in Colombia’, held a working group coordinated by the Comptroller General’s Office of this brother country in which they agreed on the actions to follow in the coming days in order to find out about the whereabouts of 38 migrants the went missing in the island of San Andrés, of which 36 are Venezuelans (17 minors) and two are Chinese, in addition to the four Colombians who ran the boat.
By Luz Dary Depablos / Correspondent lapatilla.1eye.us
“If you already have that guy in your hands, make him talk, ask him what he did with our relatives, ask him where he put them, because I have videos of everything my son-in-law did, from the moment they picked him up at the airport, until the moment he got on the boat on October 21st,” pleaded Livia Pieruzzini, during her intervention at the work table, where three other family members were also present.
Pieruzzini has four of her relatives missing: her daughter, her granddaughter, her son-in-law and a cousin, who arrived by boat to the island of San Andrés on October 21st in order to cross over into Nicaragua illegally to then continue to the United States, but unfortunately from that moment on the families lost contact.
“I have to go to bed calmly and wait, because for San Andrés our relatives are dead, for San Andrés our relatives are not human beings, and they truly must forgive me, but I have a very great pain in my heart for everything that I’m living. I have no peace, I have no life and neither does my family,” Pieruzzini said.
“How is it possible that everything that happened, happened under your noses? And then there is no answer for any family member. What is the Prosecutor’s Office going to tell us? Is it going to tell me as on one occasion: “Mrs. Livia, the criminal investigator tells me, be calm.” What mother is going to be calm with a missing daughter? What mother is going to be calm with a granddaughter who is everything to me? What mother, tell me, is going to be calm? I have no life,” the desperate woman told one of the Colombian authorities.
Likewise, during her intervention she stated that due to the complex humanitarian crisis that Venezuela is suffering, several of her relatives and friends have been forced to take the Darién route to reach the United States in search of quality of life, but unfortunately several have died in the jungle.
Agreements at the meeting
At the working table convened by the Attorney General’s Office of Colombia, the authorities present agreed to carry out more patrol actions. As well as more surveillance to prevent the departure of boats at night loaded with migrants, reported Gustavo Azócar, Director of the International Committee to Support Relatives and Friends of Venezuelan Migrants Missing in Colombia.
Azócar emphasized that: “everyone committed to working together” in order to prevent the departure of boats loaded with migrants at night.
He also noted that they will coordinate with neighboring governments such as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, among others, in order to incorporate them into the investigation regarding the whereabouts of the missing migrants, mostly Venezuelans.
“No hypothesis is ruled out, the shipwreck, the kidnapping, the smuggling of migrants are hypothesis being handled,” Azócar explained.
After the meeting between relatives and Colombian authorities, the relatives who traveled to Colombia submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office new evidence, videos, screen captures, pictures, audios, which could serve as elements of conviction, even to deprive of liberty of some people who could be related to the disappearance of these Venezuelans.
The meeting also raised the question of urging the Venezuelan authorities to collaborate in these actions, since until now they have not offered any help to the relatives.
At the end of the meeting, the relatives along with several of the authorities traveled on a Colombian National Police plane to the place where the migrants would have boarded the boat. There they deployed patrols in order to prevent the continuing illegal departure of people through this area of Colombia.