BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (CMC) – Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders are to issue a statement “condemning the shootings as well as continuing to express solidarity with Guyana” in the ongoing border dispute with Venezuela.

Last Monday, six Guyanese soldiers in their boat were shot at by several men in a vessel on the Venezuela side of the bordering Cuyuni River.

“A statement will go out condemning the shootings as well as continuing to express solidarity with Guyana,” Caricom chair and Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, told reporters at the end of the three-day Caricom summit on Friday night.

Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali and his Foreign Minister, Hugh Todd, had briefed their colleagues at the summit about the incident, which has not been condemned by Venezuela.

However, Caracas has instead accused Guyanese soldiers of shooting Venezuelans in the Essequibo region which it claims is its territory.

The soldiers have been hospitalised at the Georgetown Public Hospital and are said to be out of danger. At the time of the incident, they had been moving supplies from their main base at Eteringbang to the Makapa outpost when they allegedly came under fire and returned fire, injuring a number of the attackers.

Guyana and Venezuela are before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the ongoing territorial dispute, with Venezuela laying claim to the Essequibo region, a 61,600 sq mile area west of the Essequibo River.

The two countries are before the ICJ concerning the Arbitral Award of October 3, 1899. The case, which was filed by Guyana in March 2018, seeks the court’s decision on the validity of the Arbitral Award which finally determined the land boundary between the two countries. The court has already ruled that it has jurisdiction over the controversy and will decide the issue on the merits of the case.