Venezuelan fishermen in fear after US strikes on boats in the Caribbean

Wilder Fernández has caught four good-sized fish in the murky waters of a small bay north of Lake Maracaibo. The contents of his net will serve as dinner for his small team before they set out to go fishing again in the evening.

But this daily task is a job he has recently become scared of doing.

After 13 years as a fisherman, Fernández, a father of three, confesses that he now fears his job could turn lethal.

He is afraid he could die in these waters not at the hands of a night-time attacker – a threat fishermen like him encountered in the past – but rather, killed in a strike launched by a foreign power.

“It’s crazy, man,” he says of the deployment of US warships, fighter jets, a submarine and thousands of US troops in waters north of Venezuela’s coast.

The US force patrolling in the Caribbean is part of a military operation targeting suspected “narco-terrorists”, which according to the White House have links to the Venezuelan government led by Nicolás Maduro.

Since last month, the US has conducted at least six strikes on suspected drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean, with the latest being carried out on Thursday.

At least 27 people have been killed, but Thursday’s strike appeared to be the first to have survivors aboard the boat.

The US has accused those killed of smuggling drugs but has so far not presented any evidence. Experts have suggested the strikes could be illegal under international law.

Tensions between the US and Venezuela escalated further on Wednesday when US President Donald Trump said that he was considering strikes on Venezuelan soil.

He also confirmed that he had authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela.

Even though the strikes are said by the US to have happened thousands of kilometres from where Fernandez fishes, his wife has been trying to convince him to leave Lake Maracaibo.

Every day she begs him to leave his fishing job. “She tells me to look for another job, but there’s nowhere to go,” he explains.

He does not rule out that his boat could be hit “by mistake”. (Nation news)