Disappeared in the night Worry mounts as four fishermen remain missing

A Clarendon family is waiting by the waters with hope that missing fisherman, 32-year-old Marcell Cameron, will either arrive at his destination or return home.

His brother, Terrick Tapper, told THE STAR that Cameron was attending to his sick three-year-old son for about a week. However, last Friday, he returned to sea with three colleagues, and has not been heard from since.

“[Him] beg a ride on the boat back to Pedro Cays and all a them just go missing,” Tapper said. Still trying to make sense of the situation, he explained that the journey was a routine one.

“It’s a usual thing, it's the same boat that him come over on he was going back on. Four persons on the boat. Four of them was going over to Pedro Cays. Someone at Pedro Cays who know they were coming talk to him … and he said he’s on his way. But him nuh turn up.” He explained that those anticipating the fishermen's arrival raised an alarm when the boat failed to show up.

Pedro Cays, the popular fishing hamlet located off Jamaica's south coast, is home to nearly 800 people and serves as a semi-permanent home for many Jamaican fishers. Tapper explained that his brother boarded the boat in Westmoreland and was last heard from while travelling.

“Another family member call him and a talk to him and he said him alright, but from the light go off [last Friday] dem a try contact him to see if everything alright and to check on him,” Tapper explained.

Approximately 9 p.m. last Friday, the island was plunged into darkness following an islandwide blackout. While power was eventually restored, Cameron's family is still in the dark about his whereabouts. 

“The owner fi the boat say him have tracker fi the boat, and from the boat reach in the middle of the sea, nobody can make contact and him can’t get fi track him boat again. And that has never happened before so we just don’t know,” Tapper said.

“It just leave we stress a way. Him babymother, the old lady stress, everybody just worried and don’t know what to do,” he added.

Still, Carcell, Cameron’s  twin brother, told THE STAR that the boat owner told him that “he lost signal and it was 30 miles from Pedro Banks, which to me is in the deep”.

“We are puzzled, confused, uncertain as to what to think. But 95 per cent of sources can say they left from Westmoreland to head to Pedro Cays, and the crazy part is that for the first time he posted a video of the boat that he was boarding and now this,” he said. In the video, which was seen by the news team, Cameron was seen standing beside a red and blue boat in the night with “D-Masters JM-F0062-RP painted in white on the boat.

An Instagram post in which several entities - the Maritime Air and Cyber Command, and Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) Coast Guard, JDF Air Wing, and National Fisheries Authority - said that a coordinated search and rescue (SAR) operation remains under way, trying to locate the missing fishermen associated with a fishing vessel identified as ‘D Master’. According to the post, operations are focused along the southwestern coast of Jamaica and the Pedro Cays, with surface assets actively engaged alongside national partners.