WILLEMSTAD--Early Tuesday morning the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard (DCCG) in cooperation with the Police Corps Curaçao detained 51 undocumented persons near Curaçao. Two go-fast boats were also intercepted.
Not long after midnight the Dash-8 maritime patrol aircraft detected two suspicious vessels south east of the island. One of them was going in the southern direction.
Two Super-RHIBs were immediately deployed together with the helicopter. A Coast Guard land patrol together with the Police Corps was also directed to Fuik Bay and started a search.
They found 19 people (nine women and 10 men) who had presumably just been dropped off by one of the two boats. All of them were of Venezuelan nationality and they were transferred to the police pending deportation.
The two Super-RHIBs intercepted both vessels on the water. On one of them, south of Caracasbaai, they found 30 people and on the other one that was south of Fuik two.
Both boats were brought to the Coast Guard pier at Parera. The suspected migrants (14 women and 18 men), all Venezuelan, were transferred to the police.
The case is under further investigation.
