As the search for Able Sea­man Kieron Si­mon con­tin­ued yes­ter­day, Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram called on the Gov­ern­ment to com­mit more re­sources to the on­go­ing res­cue and re­cov­ery ef­forts.

But coast guard of­fi­cials re­mained tight-lipped about the op­er­a­tion, with Lt Khadi­ja Lamy, the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer for the T&T Coast Guard, stat­ing that she was “not at lib­er­ty to di­vulge” any in­for­ma­tion when ap­proached.

Si­mon, the fa­ther of a three-year-old boy, re­port­ed­ly dis­ap­peared on Feb­ru­ary 21 dur­ing a multi­na­tion­al drug bust off the coast of Grena­da, leav­ing his fam­i­ly and the na­tion anx­ious.

Tragedy struck af­ter Si­mon re­port­ed­ly board­ed a nar­co-sub­ma­rine that sur­faced dur­ing a counter-traf­fick­ing train­ing ex­er­cise with re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, which was said to be car­ry­ing 1.3 tonnes of co­caine aboard. It was al­leged that Si­mon, along with an­oth­er of­fi­cer, both board­ed the sub­ma­rine fol­low­ing the safe re­moval of three Colom­bian na­tion­als–as they car­ried out a check for any­one else on board.

It was claimed that rough seas caused the sub­mersible to sink sud­den­ly, trap­ping Si­mon in­side–whilst the sec­ond of­fi­cer, who had re­mained top­side, was re­port­ed­ly thrown in­to the sea. He was lat­er res­cued by of­fi­cers at the site.

Si­mon, mean­while, re­mained miss­ing at sea up to yes­ter­day.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Rati­ram ap­pealed for more re­sources to be pumped in­to the ef­fort to lo­cate the miss­ing sea­man who was serv­ing his coun­try at the time of his dis­ap­pear­ance.

“Our na­tion is hold­ing its breath, and a fam­i­ly is liv­ing a night­mare,” Rati­ram stat­ed. “We can­not af­ford de­lays. I am call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to do what is right and de­ploy every pos­si­ble re­source to bring AB Si­mon home.”

Ar­gu­ing that time was run­ning out in spite of the ef­forts of the coast­guard, Rati­ram called for greater aer­i­al sup­port, spe­cialised div­ing teams, un­der­wa­ter scan­ning equip­ment, and ad­di­tion­al mar­itime ves­sels to be added to the search-and-res­cue ef­fort.

He said, “This is not just about one sailor; it’s about stand­ing with his fam­i­ly and show­ing the na­tion that we will do every­thing in our pow­er to bring him back.”

Rati­ram said, “We owe that to AB Si­mon, to his fam­i­ly, and to every cit­i­zen who serves this coun­try.”

Re­gion­al expert: Ser­vice­men face dan­ger dai­ly

Weigh­ing in on the trag­ic cir­cum­stance, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah said the fight against transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime was very re­al.

Re­fer­ring to the high-risk board­ing ex­er­cise, which he said had cast a stark light on the dan­gers faced by front­line of­fi­cers dai­ly, Heer­ah said, “The in­ter­cept­ed ves­sel, a se­mi-sub­mersible sus­pect­ed of be­ing in­volved in nar­co-traf­fick­ing, speaks vol­umes about the evolv­ing so­phis­ti­ca­tion of transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime.”

He ac­knowl­edged, “While this op­er­a­tion un­der­scores the ef­fec­tive­ness of com­bined in­tel­li­gence and op­er­a­tional co­or­di­na­tion, it al­so rais­es crit­i­cal ques­tions about our over­all readi­ness, train­ing pro­to­cols, and the risk fac­tors as­so­ci­at­ed with mar­itime in­ter­dic­tion ef­forts.”

Heer­ah warned, “This event must serve as a wake-up call. The in­ter­na­tion­al drug trade has ad­vanced its meth­ods, util­is­ing stealth tech­nol­o­gy, sub­mersibles, and heav­i­ly armed traf­fick­ing net­works to move con­tra­band un­de­tect­ed.

“The onus is now on our se­cu­ri­ty forces to match and sur­pass these evolv­ing threats. This means in­vest­ing in spe­cialised tac­ti­cal train­ing, en­hanc­ing in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions, and en­sur­ing that our per­son­nel are equipped with the best pos­si­ble re­sources to mit­i­gate risk dur­ing such high-stakes in­ter­ven­tions.”
The se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert said we must move be­yond tra­di­tion­al board­ing tech­niques and de­vel­op ad­vanced counter-nar­cotics strate­gies tai­lored to mod­ern-day re­al­i­ties, in­clud­ing sim­u­lat­ed train­ing in high-risk ves­sel in­ter­dic­tion and the use of re­mote­ly op­er­at­ed sur­veil­lance tech­nolo­gies.

He called for a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of mar­itime en­gage­ment pro­to­cols, which was nec­es­sary as Stan­dard Op­er­at­ing Pro­ce­dures (SOPs) must align with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices, en­sur­ing that every of­fi­cer en­gag­ing in these dan­ger­ous mis­sions is sup­port­ed by ro­bust pre-mis­sion plan­ning, risk as­sess­ment frame­works, and en­hanced sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness tools.

He sug­gest­ed the in­tro­duc­tion of spe­cialised board­ing teams trained in asym­met­ric threats, com­bined with re­al-time in­tel­li­gence sup­port and en­hanced mar­itime sur­veil­lance, would be key to min­imis­ing ca­su­al­ties and max­imis­ing op­er­a­tional suc­cess.

Even as Si­mon re­mained un­ac­count­ed for, Heer­ah said, “This in­ci­dent is not just about the brav­ery of our Coast Guard per­son­nel; it is al­so about the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure their safe­ty and op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness.”

He called on the Gov­ern­ment and rel­e­vant agen­cies to pri­ori­tise fund­ing for tac­ti­cal train­ing ex­changes with al­lied na­tions, ad­vanced mar­itime in­ter­cep­tion tech­nol­o­gy, and en­hanced re­sponse strate­gies against nar­co-traf­fick­ers who are now op­er­at­ing with near-mil­i­tary pre­ci­sion.

“We can­not af­ford to be re­ac­tive—we must be proac­tive, adap­tive, and re­lent­less in our pur­suit of mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty ex­cel­lence.”

He fur­ther ad­vised against us­ing this in­ci­dent for po­lit­i­cal gain as he re­it­er­at­ed, “Our fo­cus must re­main on ho­n­our­ing the sac­ri­fice of the fall­en of­fi­cer, sup­port­ing his fam­i­ly and col­leagues, and re­in­forc­ing our com­mit­ment to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.”

“In­stead of sen­sa­tion­al­is­ing the cri­sis, we must unite in strength­en­ing our sys­tems, re­fin­ing our op­er­a­tional readi­ness, and en­sur­ing that such a loss is not in vain.”