Thursday, September 14, 2023
Under the garb of darkness, from the side of the Colombian Coast Guard, a small team climbs on board a speeding boat that is armed with radar and a high-tech detection system.
The group at 11 pm composed of a half-dozen young mariners, is all set to start their patrolling San Andrés, the tiny coral island in the Caribbean Sea.
As they swim over the waves, heavy rain starts to beat their boat ride, covering up their vision. However, the team carries on with its mission, perusing the east coast of the island in search of their target: human smugglers, or else known as coyotes.
Smugglers have been becoming asylum seekers and migrants in recent years San Andrés, it became an alternative method of coming north from South America to the United States.
Those substitute methods comprise what these coyotes bill as “VIP routes”: journeys that avoid unsafe terrains by traveling the Caribbean waters as an alternative.
However, experts have exercised words of caution that these international voyages might not be safe as they are marketed to be.
Covered in a water-resistant coat to stave off the rain, Santiago Coronado the Lieutenant Commander, heading the operations of the San Andrés Coast Guard, says that the rising approval of these “VIP routes” has caused a spike in law implementation activities off Colombia’s coast.
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
