NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Two Colombian women who were reported missing by their families this week were in holding on Freeport yesterday morning after being detained with dozens of other migrants on a yacht in Bahamian waters, Eyewitness News can confirm.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBBF) yesterday issued missing persons posters for Yuliet Munoz Pino, 31, and Viviana Patricia Trujillo Marin, 29, whose families last heard from them on October 22.
Marcia Cano, a resident of Massachusetts, Boston, who traveled to The Bahamas on behalf of families in search of the women said her attempts to find them at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre were in vain.
In an earlier correspondence with Eyewitness News before she tracked the women down, Cano said: “It’s been six days and their mothers are suffering without knowing anything.”
Cano said she traveled to Grand Bahama to continue her search following inquires with the Department of Immigration yesterday morning and learned the two women were in holding in Freeport.
She said the women were expected to be flown to Colombia on Sunday.
Of their whereabouts, Cano said she was unaware of the specifics, but understood the women were among some 47 other people, including a Bahamian man believed to have been smuggling them.
The group was reportedly detained at sea.
She said she understood those on board the yacht, which reportedly broke down, paid in the ballpark of $30,000 to be transported from Colombia Ecuador.
“They paid $30,000 for each person,” Cano said.
“Can you imagine that? Each person pays that from Ecuador, from Colombia.
“I don’t know the girls; just the family reached me because whenever someone needs help to find people I go to the correctional [institutions] and things like that because I am an interpreter and a volunteer too in disaster relief.
“I came to The Bahamas to help these people to find out.”
She said the other migrants who were on board the yacht were still at the detention center and complained about not being able to contact their families since their detainment.
As has been reported, a number of Cuban migrants at the detention center incited a disturbance at the facility after they demanded to be sent home.
When contacted yesterday, Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe advised that several detainees were charged and sent to the Department of Correctional Services.
It remains unclear why the Colombians were on Freeport, while the remaining migrants detained were being housed at the detention center.
According to authorities, the group included the two Colombian women, 10 Colombian men, eight Ecuadorians and a minor, five Jamaican men, seven Romanians, a Turkish man, and 11 Haitians including a pregnant woman, according to authorities.
Minister of Immigration Keith Bell said the interdiction of the group was one of several recent human smuggling operations, adding these matters warranted serious concern and further interdiction.
