B.D.F. sergeant missing for six days in Chiquibul
When someone in Belize is seriously missing, whether at sea or on land, the lead search and rescue agency is usually the Belize Defence Force. Well tonight one of the B.D.F.’s very own is missing in the Chiquibul Forest.
Juvencia Aguilar, Mother
?I just want my son to come back. That?s all I want, him to come back home safely, right.?
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
It is six days that Belize Defence Force soldier Sgt. Ramon Aguilar has been missing and still there is no word of his whereabouts. According to B.D.F. Chief of Staff Lt. Col. Reuel Black, thirty-three year old Aguilar was on a land navigation course as part of the army?s annual Jungle Warfare Instructor?s Training when he failed to return to base on October fourth. He had returned to the jungle to retrieve a map that he had left behind.
Lt. Col. Reuel Black, Chief of Staff, B.D.F.
?It?s an individual skills course where you evaluate how well a person can navigate. At that level they should be extremely competent because they?ll be instructors for future jungle warfare courses, so they have to be very competent and we need to evaluate how well they can navigate, amongst other skills, and he was doing that at that day.?
Jacqueline Godwin
?What happened to Mr. Aguilar??
Lt. Col. Reuel Black
?Sgt. Aguilar had already completed his navigation course and he was on his way back to the finish point, which is at the Las Cuevas Research Station, which is where our base camp is. On his way back, he noticed that he did not have his map and he told one of his friends, he did not have his map?a fellow student?and he returned for his map and since then he has not returned back to base.?
The soldier?s family remains optimistic but as each day passes they are increasingly concerned about his welfare.
Lorna Aguilar, Wife
?My biggest concern right now is maybe he deh out there, he cold, because Mountain Pine Ridge is very cold, if he have a warm place to sleep. He trained inna dah thing fi survive, so my concern is right now fi mek they search hard and they find him.?
Lt. Col. Reuel Black
?Whenever a soldier is missing on exercise, the unit that he is working with has something like twenty-four hours to look for him on their own. If that does not happen, then they call us at Force Headquarters and we send additional troops to expand the search for another forty-eight hours. Once that produce no results, then the Force go into general search mode and searches for him in a very wide fashion using all the skills and resources deemed necessary to locate the person.?
Twenty-eight year old Lorna Aguilar says another consolation is that her husband had discussed with her several years ago what he would do if he ever got lost.
Lorna Aguilar
?From the time, several years ago when a soldier went missing, that was in the PG area that time, and me and he di talk bout that and he said if he mi lost, from the time he find that he mi off the track, he mi wah sit down there, why because they mi wah find ah. He never mi wah walk, he said he mi wah sit down because the more you go farther you noh know where you deh. So fi he thing, he mi wah sit down there and he mi wah wait until somebody find him, he never mi wah walk. From the time he conscious dah he lost, he mi wah sit down.?
But all indications are that Sgt. Aguilar, for some unknown reason, did not remain at his last location.
Lt. Col. Reuel Black
?If he gets lost, if he finds out that he is disoriented, what he needs to do is stop, do a map check?in this case he didn?t have a map check?return back to the last know position and if from there you cannot reorient yourself, you should stay there until you are picked up because the manner in which you will be searched for is the last place you should from been and the other side from the first place you went. So you will be picked up at the last known position.?
The B.D.F. has deployed over two hundred soldiers who are combing a nine square mile area of the Chiquibul Forest Reserve. Aguilar, who has been with the B.D.F. for thirteen years, is considered well trained and capable of surviving the challenge.
Lt. Col. Reuel Black
?It?s rugged terrain, but you have to be very fit to be in the Jungle Warfare Instructor Course, so that?s not a problem for him in terms of fitness. It is rugged, it?s not hostile. We don?t know about it being hostile, we only had banditry previously and that has stopped since we?ve had our presence there, but hostilities, no. No known predators are there in that area, the jaguars don?t attack human beings unless they are really starving or so on, but the amount of noise that has been around here, they would not have been there anyway.?
Lt. Col. Black says there may be two reasons why Sgt. Aguilar has been unable to find his way back.
Lt. Col. Reuel Black
?He needs his compass and his map. If he did not find his map, then he is not really equip to get back to any particular location, because he only has his compass, he would not have his map to tell him where to go. However, we always have what we call a panic bearing where is you are lost, you just put a bearing on your compass and you walk until you get to a road; in this case the road was the Chiquibul Forest Road. So if he has not arrived there yet, that means that something probably happened to his compass, it probably damaged or maybe he lost it in the process also. Those are the possibilities.?
The Aguilar family says they are grateful for the B.D.F.?s efforts in trying to locate their loved one, but appealed to the wider public in the area for assistance.
Juvencia Aguilar, Mother
?Anybody weh could help or assist us, anybody who see him, at least could call us, help in any way. All I ask is that my son come home safely with the blessing of the good Lord. We all here love him, he is not a bad guy, he is never a guy in trouble, he is always there for his family. That?s all I?m praying.?
On several previous occasions B.D.F. soldiers have gone missing in the jungle, but have always managed to be rescued or successfully returned to base on their own.
