WILLEMSTAD - Shalick Clement, spokesman for the coast guard, considers it very unlikely that the coast guard on Bonaire has sent a boat with illegal Venezuelans to Curaçao.
With this she responds to what the director of Risk Management and Disaster Relief, Lesley Fer, has said during the Interparliamentary Kingdom Consultation (Ipko) last week. “On the slide in the presentation it is written with red letters:
“Remarkable: Vessel with Venezuelans on board is redirected from Bonaire to Curaçao.”
In an explanation he says: “We work together with the ABC Islands on this file. There was a situation where a Venezuelan ship went to Bonaire with people who were probably undocumented and who were simply sent on to Curaçao. So, if those undocumented migrants come here to Curaçao, we “process” them and deport them. They go to Bonaire, and then they say "oh no, you had to go to Curaçao right? Curaçao is heading that way.” That is actually something that was very remarkable. That is why I am giving it along, because it was certainly remarkable to me.”
When Dutch MP Nevin Özütok returned to this point and asked again about the undocumented migrants who were sent from Bonaire to Curaçao, Fer repeated:
“It is about that one case, that undocumented migrants were sent from Bonaire to Curaçao, by the coast guard and the border guards there. They went to Bonaire, they were wrong, because they wanted to go to Curaçao and were redirected to Curaçao.”
Clement repeats again: “The coast guard of Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius is one and the same coast guard. I cannot imagine that such a thing happened. I have checked and so far nobody can confirm the story.”