'That was a miracle, an incredible thing, like something out of a movie.' Woman who managed to survive after her boat sank in the Caribbean highlights the risks that Venezuelans are taking to leave the country after years of dire economic conditions.
In this Jan. 2019, photo provided by Luisa Garcia, mother of Yubreilys Merchán, shows Merchan in Güiria, Venezuela. Merchán, a 23-year-old hairdresser, survived when the wooden boat carrying her and other Venezuelans, mostly women, sank on its way to Trinidad early Wednesday, April 24, near the Venezuelan island of Patos, 5 miles from a peninsula in the Venezuelan state of Sucre.
When she and another companion finally reached a rocky coast in the middle of the night, they clambered over boulders and collapsed in an embrace, crying with relief after realizing they were safe. While the majority of Venezuelan migrants have traveled by land into neighboring Colombia and Brazil, overloaded fishing boats sometimes smuggle people toward an uncertain future on nearby Caribbean islands. Some women turn to prostitution on arrival, according to Merchán’s mother, who lives in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
Venezuela’s civil protection agency said government vessels have launched a search for survivors in Bocas del Dragon, or Dragon’s Mouths, the straits separating the South American country from Trinidad.García, who waited for any news of her daughter for more than 24 hours, used a local expression to describe her immense relief when Merchán’s husband called to tell her that the eldest of her three children was alive.
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