As ten­sions rise with Venezuela fol­low­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sup­port for the US’s dead­ly cam­paign against drug traf­fick­ers, some re­li­gious lead­ers are urg­ing the pub­lic to pray but al­so to pre­pare should there be a vi­o­lent es­ca­la­tion.

While call­ing on lead­ers to ad­dress the con­flict through di­a­logue, In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) pres­i­dent Dr Har­ri­son Bur­ris ad­vised the pop­u­la­tion to stay calm but “take mea­sures to en­sure your sur­vival.”

“No­body can pre­dict, but we can make an as­sess­ment, and we can prob­a­bly make a judge­ment call on what we see in front of our very eyes, and there­fore we should try to keep as calm as pos­si­ble,” he said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.