Guyana launches criminal probe as crews scour waters for survivors after ferry capsizes

The search for sur­vivors con­tin­ued in Guyana Mon­day af­ter a fer­ry, be­lieved to be over­loaded, cap­sized over the week­end, with the gov­ern­ment not­ing that at least 35 of the 67 peo­ple res­cued were not on the man­i­fest list.

Hopes of find­ing miss­ing pas­sen­gers and crew are be­gin­ning to fade, as Prime Min­is­ter Mark Phillips told re­porters late Sun­day that of­fi­cials be­lieve there were many more than the doc­u­ment­ed 116 pas­sen­gers and 17 crew mem­bers aboard the decades-old fer­ry.

Phillips al­so not­ed that the res­cued cap­tain and at least one oth­er crew mem­ber test­ed pos­i­tive for mar­i­jua­na and re­main in po­lice cus­tody pend­ing a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The MV Bari­ma cap­sized off the Es­se­qui­bo coast late Sat­ur­day while en route from the cap­i­tal, George­town, to Port Kai­tu­ma in north­west Guyana, near Venezuela. On­ly two bod­ies have been found.

The prime min­is­ter said the gov­ern­ment is launch­ing an ur­gent and com­pre­hen­sive probe, con­cen­trat­ing on the ac­cu­ra­cy of the man­i­fest, car­go load­ing, com­pli­ance with safe­ty rules and the con­duct of the cap­tain and crew be­fore sail­ing, among oth­er is­sues.

“Let me be ab­solute­ly clear: Where neg­li­gence, mis­con­duct or crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing is es­tab­lished, those re­spon­si­ble will face the full force of the law,” he said. “There will be no ex­cep­tions and no tol­er­ance for ac­tions that placed in­no­cent lives at risk.”

Pub­lic Works Min­is­ter Juan Edghill said he is dev­as­tat­ed about the worst ma­rine dis­as­ter in decades and the lat­est de­vel­op­ments.

“We have a ze­ro tol­er­ance for mem­bers of the crew drink­ing or smok­ing while at work. And for us to have pos­i­tive tests from the cap­tain, this is se­ri­ous,” he said. “Peo­ple’s lives are at risk, and those mat­ters will be dealt with.”

Edghill ac­knowl­edged that of­fi­cials don’t know how many peo­ple were aboard the fer­ry be­cause the man­i­fest list is not ac­cu­rate.

“No­body for the want of a few ex­tra dol­lars can cheat a sys­tem and com­pro­mise the en­tire search-and-res­cue op­er­a­tion,” he said. “To be con­front­ed with a re­al­i­ty that de­spite an of­fi­cial man­i­fest giv­en to us, per­sons who were res­cued were not man­i­fest­ed, that is a crim­i­nal ac­tion.”

Pas­sen­gers have com­plained for years that clerks un­of­fi­cial­ly sell seats to friends and as­so­ciates for cash while not list­ing them on the man­i­fest, a scheme that has been on­go­ing for decades at state piers.

Boats and fer­ries are com­mon­ly used across Guyana, a heav­i­ly forest­ed coun­try with scant road sys­tems in its in­te­ri­or. Many who use fer­ries do so be­cause car­go rates are cheap­er com­pared with air freight charged by do­mes­tic air­lines of­fer­ing dai­ly flights to in­te­ri­or com­mu­ni­ties.

Sev­er­al pas­sen­gers said on so­cial me­dia that wa­ter had been seep­ing in­to the car­go area as the MV Bari­ma limped along the North At­lantic coast on its now ill-fat­ed voy­age to Port Kai­tu­ma.

The ves­sel, built more than 80 years ago, was last dry docked for ma­jor re­pairs in 2024 and was due for ad­di­tion­al ma­jor re­pairs in Oc­to­ber. — GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana (AP)

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Sto­ry by BERT WILKIN­SON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press