Kidnapped

Grenadians held hostage in Venezuela

BROOKLYN, New York— Viewers in the Caribbean were privy to some very startling TV footage of Grenadians being held hostage in Venezuela. The video has gone viral on social media. First reported by Grenadian journalist, Mikey Hutchinson, on his Facebook and media website, the video shows two men reported to be Grenadians being held at gunpoint by a man brandishing a handgun standing over them, pistol whipping them as he teases them.

Another man can be heard in the background speaking both English and Spanish to the men and the persons that the video threat was directed to. Both men being held hostage are fisherman sources close to family members say. The victims can be heard calling on the assistance of two persons: One who goes by the name “Cobra” and another one by the name “Africano”, pleading with the men to pay the kidnappers the money and/or pay the kidnappers their money!

Sources familiar with the men say that Cobra and Africano are from the islands of Carriacou, Grenada, and Union Island, St Vincent, respectively and may be involved in the trafficking of illicit drugs and narcotics. The Grenadian authorities are said to be investigating the incident. This recent kidnapping by Venezuelan criminals comes on the heels of the release of three Trinidadian nationals that were detained by Venezuelan authorities off of the coast of Venezuela and Trinidad.

The three fishermen, who were taken from the territorial waters of Trinidad and Tobago by members of Venezuela’s Guardia Nacional late last week, were returned to their families on Monday April 16, 2018.

These recent confrontations between Venezuelan authorities and armed militias, are exacerbating an already tense situation in Venezuela as the country spirals out of control and falls into more economic despair, violence, brutal crackdowns by the Nicholas Maduro regime, while its citizens leave in droves fleeing to other Caribbean and Latin American countries.

CARIBBEAN TIMES NEWS has reported on the current tense situation at the border between Venezuela and Guyana, where a border dispute, heightened by gold deposits and the prospects of oil, have intensified border clashes between Venezuelan militias and gangs, with incursions and violence seemingly taking place on a daily basis.

Guyanese nationals have also been kidnapped and, in some instances, murdered by persons alleged to be Venezuelan gangs protecting the borders where the oil deposits are said to be the richest. Guyana President, David Granger, has advised citizens living in communities near the Venezuelan border to proceed in the area with caution, and said  that members of the Guyana Defense Force will be active and stationed in the area until further notice.

further notice.

Guyana has been promised military assistance of Brazilian farmed forces if the matter escalates and full-scale war breaks out. Other Southern Caribbean islands are feeling the pressure of the Venezuelan crisis, as the collapse of controls inside Venezuela has created more gang- and militia-related activities, including drugs and weapons trafficking, gold and precious metals trafficking into Curacao and Aruba, in addition to fish-poaching, piracy and the sex-trafficking of women into the Southern Caribbean islands.