Death toll in Guyana boating tragedy rises to 65

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

As the death toll from the MV Bari­ma fer­ry dis­as­ter in Guyana climbed to 65 yes­ter­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go mil­i­tary and Brazil­ian per­son­nel joined re­gion­al teams in search and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions.

In a me­dia up­date brief­ing last evening, Guyana Prime Min­is­ter Mark Phillips said mar­itime as­sets and per­son­nel from the T&T Coast Guard and Brazil­ian navy had ar­rived at in­ci­dent site and joined the on­go­ing search res­cue and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion, and would sup­port div­ing op­er­a­tions and oth­er spe­cialised re­cov­ery ac­tiv­i­ties. He said 19 ves­sels and three air­craft were in­volved in the search, as well as small­er ves­sels from the Guyana De­fence Force Coast Guard and Mar­itime De­part­ment, which are con­duct­ing search­es fur­ther in­land in an ef­fort to lo­cate any re­main­ing pas­sen­gers.

Phillips said tech­ni­cal teams were con­duct­ing a de­tailed as­sess­ment of cap­sized ves­sel to de­ter­mine the safest and most ef­fec­tive method to im­prove ac­cess for dri­ving teams. This, he said, in­volved repo­si­tion­ing the ves­sel and in­stalling ma­rine sal­vage airbags, al­so known as buoy­an­cy bal­loons, around the wreck­age to re­store buoy­an­cy. Once afloat, he said, the ves­sel will be towed clos­er to the shore­line to fa­cil­i­tate fur­ther search and res­cue op­er­a­tions.

Phillips said five bod­ies were re­cov­ered yes­ter­day, tak­ing the to­tal num­ber of vic­tims to 65, with 44 so far iden­ti­fied by fam­i­ly mem­bers and 23 re­leased to their fam­i­lies. The num­ber of res­cued pas­sen­gers and crew re­main at 76.

Phillips said the gov­ern­ment’s im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty is sup­port­ing griev­ing fam­i­lies and com­plet­ing the res­cue and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion.

“The fo­cus is on re­cov­er­ing bod­ies, fi­nanc­ing the bur­ial and fu­ner­al rites, and pro­vid­ing what­ev­er as­sis­tance the fam­i­lies need now,” he said.

“That is not deemed com­pen­sa­tion. That is the gov­ern­ment’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in times like this to as­sist fam­i­lies.”

He said once the res­cue and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion is com­plet­ed, gov­ern­ment would fo­cus on the next phase, which he said would in­volve a com­mis­sion of in­quiry.

”Af­ter the com­mis­sion of in­quiry, then the is­sues of com­pen­sa­tion will be de­ter­mined be­cause it will be guid­ed by the com­mis­sion of in­quiry, the re­port, and the rec­om­men­da­tions,” he ex­plained.

In a pre­vi­ous state­ment ear­li­er yes­ter­day, the Guyana gov­ern­ment said an ex­ten­sive mul­ti-agency and in­ter­na­tion­al re­sponse was un­der­way, with search, res­cue and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions con­tin­u­ing.

In an in­ter­view on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Phillips said his gov­ern­ment would be launch­ing an in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion of in­quiry to de­ter­mine what caused the tragedy and who should be held ac­count­able.

“The re­port and the rec­om­men­da­tions in the re­port of that in­quiry will guide us in de­ter­min­ing who were ac­count­able, and the nec­es­sary sanc­tions and dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tions that will be tak­en. But we are com­mit­ted to bring­ing clo­sure to the peo­ple who are af­fect­ed by this in­ci­dent and clo­sure is not just res­cue and re­cov­ery and fu­ner­al. Clo­sure goes be­yond that, and there­fore, we are ob­lig­at­ed to con­duct the in­quiry in­to what would have led to this (in­ci­dent),” Phillips said, adding the gov­ern­ment was al­ready in the process of pur­chas­ing new fer­ries and that old­er as­sets would even­tu­al­ly be de­com­mis­sioned.

“But, this in­ci­dent nat­u­ral­ly will cause us to have a quick dis­cus­sion and, you know, go through how we move for­ward af­ter such an in­ci­dent. And that will in­clude ex­am­i­na­tion of the ex­ist­ing as­sets, the stand­ing op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures, and all the reg­u­la­tions that gov­ern the mar­itime trans­port fa­cil­i­ties in Guyana.”

Guyana de­clared three days of na­tion­al mourn­ing, which start­ed yes­ter­day and ends to­mor­row, in ho­n­our of the vic­tims and held a Na­tion­al Day of Prayer yes­ter­day.

T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar an­nounced on Tues­day that mil­i­tary re­sources, in­clud­ing the Coast Guard’s TTS SPEY­SIDE (CG 25) with a crew of 20 per­sons, plus an ad­di­tion­al sev­en divers and the Air Guard’s C26 air­craft with a crew of four to as­sist in aer­i­al search­es, were de­ployed to Guyana to as­sist in res­cue and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions.