A deadly cross-border diplomatic row has erupted after a fatal shooting incident near Guatemala’s Punta de Manabique, where Guatemalan military forces are accused of killing a local fisherman, wounding a second, then deliberately shifting blame to neighboring Belizean security units.
The deceased fisherman has been identified as 32-year-old Jaime Geovanni Ich Ramos, a father of two children aged 9 and 11. The second man on the vessel, Julio Cesar Pineda, sustained a gunshot wound to the shoulder and is currently receiving ongoing care in a local hospital. In an exclusive on-the-record interview with News 5, a family member of the two men based in Livingston, Izabal, shared new details about the sequence of events that led to the tragedy.
According to the relative, the pair set out on a routine fishing trip early last Thursday, and had made a short stop in Belizean territorial waters to cast lines before heading back toward Guatemalan territory with a full catch of snapper. As they neared Punta de Manabique on their return journey, the relative claims, the unarmed fishing boat came under sudden fire from Guatemalan military personnel patrolling the area.
“They were shot at without any warning or challenge,” the relative told reporters in Spanish. “When the soldiers boarded our family’s boat, they saw immediately that they were nothing more than working fishermen bringing in their daily catch. Even after realizing they had fired on unarmed civilians, the soldiers only brought the wounded men to the hospital and left them untreated while bleeding out. Then, they told local officials that Belizean security forces were the ones who opened fire.”
The relative laid out a clearer timeline of the attack: Pineda, who was steering the boat, was hit first in the shoulder. When he collapsed from injury, Ramos took over control of the vessel, and was immediately shot and killed by the military personnel. “They are throwing blame on Belizean authorities because they refuse to take responsibility for their own mistake,” the family member added.
Pineda’s mother has publicly echoed the family’s claims, rejecting the Guatemalan military’s false narrative. “This attack did not come from Belize – it happened right here at Punta de Manabique, which is Guatemalan territory,” she said. “I am demanding nothing less than full justice. They had no right to shoot unarmed, innocent people.”
News 5 reached out to Belizean security officials for comment on the accusations, and Commandant of the Belize Coast Guard Gregory Soberanis issued a categorical full denial of any involvement in the incident in an exclusive response. “We are not engaging with this false propaganda or this manufactured narrative,” Soberanis stated. “The shooting happened in the Punta Manabique area, which is located deep inside Guatemalan territorial waters. Belizean security forces do not operate or patrol outside of our own jurisdictional waters, and we were nowhere near that location when the incident occurred.”
As of April 12, 2026, Guatemalan defense officials have not yet issued an official response to the family’s allegations or the denial from Belize, leaving the cross-border dispute unresolved and the family still waiting for accountability.