Vanessa Kussie, widow of fallen LMCS diver Rishi Nagassar, believes that United National Congress (UNC) political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar will make good on her promise to compensate the families of four divers who died after being sucked into a pipeline while doing work on behalf of Paria Fuel Trading Company in 2022.
Kussie who attended the UNC’s General Election campaign launch in San Fernando on Monday night, broke down in tears as Persad-Bissessar declared at Naparima College: “You do not leave four men in a pipe to die.”
Speaking to Guardian Media at the event, Kussie, who is also the Councillor for Couva West/Roystonia, said Persad-Bissessar, along with her councillors and MPs, had supported the families from day one of the tragic incident. Three years later, she believes that compensation will still benefit the grieving families, who continue to struggle daily.
She said the families had pleaded with the Government for three years yet received nothing—not even a hamper or a visit, apart from interactions with Paria officers. She criticised Prime Minister Stuart Young, claiming he failed to meet with the families meaningfully as Minister of Energy and Energy Industries.
“He knew nothing about what was going on or what the families were going through. He never did anything to help us, and I do not believe that he ever will,” Kussie claimed.
She continued: “We will be emotional because our husbands were left there to die. They did not ask to die; they went out to do an honest day’s work. They had families waiting for them to come home.”
Kussie said those in authority had a choice to save their breadwinners but instead deployed Coast Guardsmen to the scene to aim firearms at any diver who attempted to enter the pipe.
“Is that what we want for our country? More blood?”
She recounted the harrowing moments from the Commission of Enquiry (CoE), recalling the haunting voices of her husband and his colleagues pleading for help from inside the pipeline.
“It is so fresh—whenever the topic of the divers comes up, you actually do get into an emotional state because you hear their screams, their agony. They were fighting to come out of that pipeline, and they did nothing. They just left them there to die, and this hurts us to this day.”
Persad-Bissessar accused the Government of showing no remorse for its actions, claiming approximately $50 million had been spent on lawyers involved in the CoE into the divers’ deaths, yet “not one cent for the families.”
The CoE had actually cost just over $15 million.
“We demand that the Government pay the families of the divers. When we win, that will be one of the first things I will do. You have to make sure that happens on April 28,” Persad-Bissessar vowed.
On 25 February 2022, five LMCS divers—Rishi Nagassar, Christopher Boodram, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry, and Kazim Ali Jr—were working inside a hyperbaric chamber conducting subsea operations on Paria’s Sealine No. 36. Shortly after lunch, a Delta P event occurred, pulling the divers into the pipeline.
Boodram managed to escape by dragging himself and swimming through the oil-filled line. He said despite his desperate pleas for responders to rescue his colleagues, no attempt was made, and they perished.
