By NICHOLAS CASEY
NOVEMBER 25, 2016
Migrants preparing to board the smugglers’ boats that will take them from Venezuela to Curaçao.
MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
WILLEMSTAD, Curaçao — The dark outlines of land had just come into view when the smuggler forced everyone into the sea.
Roymar Bello screamed. She was one of 17 passengers who had climbed onto the overloaded fishing boat with aging motors in July, hoping to escape Venezuela’s economic disaster for a new life on the Caribbean island of Curaçao.
Afraid of the authorities, the smuggler refused to land. Ms. Bello said he gruffly ordered her and the others into the water, pointing toward the distant shore. In the panic, she was tossed overboard, tumbling into the predawn blackness.
But Ms. Bello could not swim.
