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

Wilder Fernández 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 going back fishing in the evening.

But this daily task is work that has recently frightened him.

After 13 years as a fisherman, Mr. Fernández admits he now fears his work could become deadly.

He fears he will die in these waters, not at the hands of a nocturnal attacker – a threat fishermen like him have faced in the past – but rather killed in a strike launched by a foreign power.

“It’s crazy, man,” he said of the deployment of U.S. warships, fighter jets, a submarine and thousands of U.S. troops to the waters north of the Venezuelan coast.

US forces patrolling the Caribbean are part of a military operation targeting suspected “narcoterrorists” who the White House says have ties to the Venezuelan government led by Nicolas Maduro.

Since September 2, the United States has carried out several strikes against what it called “narco-boats,” in which at least 27 people were killed.

The United States has accused those killed of drug trafficking, but has so far presented no evidence. Experts have suggested the strikes could be illegal under international law.

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

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

Mr. Fernández is up to date with the latest news.

Even though the United States says the strikes occurred thousands of miles from where he fishes, his wife tries to convince him to leave Lake Maracaibo.

Every day she begs him to quit his job as a fisherman. “She tells me to look for another job, but I have nowhere to go,” he explains.

He does not exclude that his boat could be hit “by mistake”.

“Of course it worries me, you never know. I think about it every day, man,” says the father of three.

A day after BBC Mundo spoke with Mr Fernández, Trump announced that “six narcoterrorists” had been killed in the latest US strike in international waters off the Venezuelan coast.

Trump added that “intelligence confirmed that the vessel was trafficking narcotics and associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks.”

The Trump administration accuses Maduro of leading the Cartel des Soleils drug trafficking gang and is offering a $50 million (£37 million) reward for information leading to his capture.

Maduro, whose legitimacy as Venezuela’s president is contested internationally after last year’s disputed elections, has denied the cartel accusations. He dismissed them as an attempt by the White House to oust him from office.

In his final statement, he called on television for peace with the United States.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino warned Venezuelans to prepare “for the worst.”

Speaking after the Oct. 2 incursion of five F-35 fighter jets into Venezuelan airspace, General Padrino said his country faced a “serious threat” that he said could involve “air bombardments, naval blockades, clandestine commandos landing on Venezuelan beaches or in the jungle Venezuela, swarms of drones, sabotage and targeted assassinations of leaders.

Venezuela also denounced “increasing threats” from the United States at the United Nations Security Council last week.

In response, the US representative to the UN meeting, John Kelley, stressed that his country “will not waver in its action to protect our nation from narcoterrorists.”

Meanwhile, attacks in the Caribbean have undermined the safety of Venezuela’s fishermen, said Jennifer Nava, spokesperson for the Fishermen’s Council of El Bajo, in Venezuela’s Zulia state.

Ms Nava told BBC Mundo that people employed in the fishing industry fear being hit by the crossfire between US forces and suspected drug traffickers.

Ms Nava says the added risks fishermen face could push some of them into the arms of drug and arms traffickers who seek to recruit people to transport their illicit cargoes.

“Some of these guys are approached by traffickers,” she says, adding that a slowdown in the fishing industry could make fishermen more vulnerable to these approaches.

There is certainly a sense of nervousness among Lake Maracaibo fishermen.

Most of the crews of two small fishing boats owned by Usbaldo Albornoz refused to work when news of the US strikes broke.

Mr Albornoz, who has worked in the fishing sector for 32 years, describes the situation as “worrying”.

“The guys didn’t want to go fishing at sea,” he told BBC Mundo on San Francisco de Zulia beach, located on the northern shore of Lake Maracaibo at the crossroads of the Gulf of Venezuela.

The fear of being hit by a U.S. strike is the latest in a long list of risks he and his men face, including pirates, oil spills and declining revenues in recent years, Mr. Albornoz said.

In a recently leaked memo sent to US lawmakers, the Trump administration said it had determined it was involved in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug trafficking organizations.

The White House called attacks on ships in the Caribbean “self-defense,” in response to criticism from legal experts who called them illegal.

But beyond the fear that many feel, there is also a sense of challenge.

In late September, hundreds of fishermen on dozens of boats traveled to Lake Maracaibo to show support for the Maduro government and to protest the U.S. military deployment.

José Luzardo was one of them. Spokesman for the fishermen of El Bajo, he has been fishing for nearly 40 years and accuses the United States of “pointing its cannons at our Venezuela.”

He says he is not afraid and would give his life to defend his homeland.

“The Trump administration has us cornered. If we have to sacrifice our lives to defend the government, then we will, to make this whole thing end,” he said.

He insists that what fishermen want is “peace and work”, not war, but he is visibly angry when he refers to the “military barrier” that the United States has deployed in the Caribbean.

Last month, the Venezuelan government mobilized militia members and called on those who had not joined the civilian forces to do so.

More than 16,000 fishermen followed his call, according to Fisheries Minister Juan Carlos Loyo.

Luzardo, who has been fishing since he was 11, says he will be “combat ready wherever it’s needed.”

“If they [the US] we want to kill ourselves, so be it, but we are not afraid.”