HOPE and prayers were still being held on to on Sunday by relatives of four divers who went missing on Friday while working on an undersea 36-inch oil pipeline.
Missing are Fyzal Kurban, Rishi Nagassar, Kazim Ali Jr and Yusuf Henry. A fifth diver with the group, Christopher Boodram, was rescued on Friday by diver Ronald Ramoutar who was also a relative of Kurban. Boodram is in stable condition at the San Fernando General Hospital.
The relatives of the missing men assembled at the car park outside Heritage Petroleum's administrative building in Pointe-a-Pierre for a second day, clinging to the hope that the men were alive and would be rescued.
Nicole Greenidge, mother of Yusuf Henry, was asked by reporters whether she thought her son was still alive.
"I am just trying to pray and hope for the best, not only for my son but all four."
Other relatives agreed with Greenidge. They said, "Broken but alive. We'll take them broken but alive."
While they prayed for the rescue of the missing men, Greenidge said this was happening against growing frustration about being kept in the dark about what was being done to rescue the men.
"The latest right now? They don't have the earliest, much less the latest. Right now, everything is spinning top in mud and going around in a circle.
“Since Friday we have been fed with lies as far as I'm concerned."
Greenidge said the authorities were not moving with any urgency.
"They're moving, as far as I'm concerned, (as if) they have bodies to pick up."
A meeting on Saturday with the families, Energy Minister Stuart Young and Paria Fuel Trading Company officials brought them little comfort.
Greenidge claimed, "What they told us and nothing is the same. The meeting ended with no kind of conclusion"
She said there were conflicting messages about whether rescue operations were underway and the progress of those operations.
Henry has four children ages five-ten.
Greenidge's daughter Afeesha Henry said, "The eldest has been contacting me throughout. The eldest is a girl."
Greenidge said Yusuf's second child "knows as well what happened." She added the third child, another daughter, "is waiting and hoping still that we will come up with some good news."
Kurban's son Nicholas, who is also a diver, has been involved in the rescue efforts.
"For the last two days we've been trying to get the men out.We got one guy (Boodram) out."
Nicholas also said two teams of divers from Chaguaramas, with unlimited air supplies and equipment to go the distance, arrived to assist.
"Paria is saying we can't go back down the line because it is unsafe.”
Even though the men have been missing for more than 36 hours, Nicholas said, "We believe they are alive." He believed they could be surviving because of air pockets in the line and there was a safe way to rescue them.
But he lamented, "Right now, everything is at a standstill."
[caption id="attachment_942058" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A police presence during a demonstration by the MSJ and OWTU outside the Heritage Petro
