M.V. BARIMA – THE TRAGEDY
“I know my baby is in that boat,” Samantha Ramin told reporters at Charity during last week, where families have gathered since last Sunday awaiting news of loved ones. The body of her young daughter has been recovered. Her baby son is still missing. The M.V. Barima, which departed Georgetown for Port Kaituma on Saturday evening began taking on water and capsized off the Essequibo Coast, some seven miles from shore. Around one hundred lives are feared lost. Search and rescue operations are ongoing. The Minister of Public Works has described it as Guyana’s worst maritime disaster in decades. Few will disagree.
The grief that has descended on the families of the victims, on the communities of the North West District, the Pomeroon and the Essequibo Coast, and on the nation as a whole, cannot adequately be expressed in words. The deepest condolences of all Guyanese go out to the bereaved families, who must now bear losses that no family should be asked to bear, and to the survivors, many of whom spent hours in the water and will carry the memory of that night for the rest of their lives. The rescue personnel, divers, health workers, volunteers and residents of the river communities who assisted in the rescue and recovery efforts, in the most difficult of circumstances, have earned the nation’s gratitude.
The M.V. Barima is eighty-seven years old. For generations she has been the lifeline of the North-West District, carrying passengers, produce, fuel and goods between Georgetown and Port Kaituma for communities that have few alternatives. She last underwent major repairs in 2024 and further maintenance had been scheduled for October. A replacement vessel, purchased from India at a cost of US$12.7 million, awaits the completion of a special pier at Port Kaituma. The public is entitled to ask how a vessel of that age remained the mainstay of so vital a route, and why the infrastructure required to retire her was not treated with greater urgency.
The facts so far disclosed raise disturbing questions. The vessel’s manifest listed 133 persons. The authorities now believe that as many as 179 were aboard: thirty-two of those rescued appear on no manifest at all. Survivors allege that the vessel was heavily laden with cargo, including engines, vehicles and fuel containers; that engine trouble developed shortly after departure and repairs were attempted at sea rather than the vessel returning to port; and that concerns about water entering the vessel were dismissed as routine. There are complaints about the time taken for rescue to arrive. The Government maintains that the vessel was within its capacity limits for both passengers and cargo, and the head of the Maritime Administration Department has properly cautioned that the accounts conflict and that conclusions must await a full investigation. The captain and at least one other crew member have been detained.
This is not the time for premature blame, and nothing should be said that prejudges the innocence or guilt of any individual. But sympathy, however sincere, discharges no obligation. Prime Minister Phillips has said that the Government has nothing to hide and has pledged that anyone found responsible, whether for negligence or criminal wrongdoing, will face the consequences. That pledge must be redeemed by a full, independent and public inquiry, whose report is published and whose recommendations are implemented. Guyana has had no shortage of commissions of inquiry. Their reports have too often gathered dust while the conditions they examined persisted. The families waiting at Charity are entitled to more than another such report.
There is a broader question that cannot be avoided. Guyana today commands resources beyond anything in its history. Budgets of unprecedented size are passed, and infrastructure of every description is under construction. Yet the people of the hinterland, among the poorest of our citizens, continued to depend for their lives and livelihoods on an eighty-seven-year-old ship. The measure of Guyana’s transformation will not be the towers and highways of the coast, but whether the ordinary Guyanese who board a ferry at the Georgetown stelling can do so in the confidence that the State has done everything in its power to bring them safely home.
The most fitting tribute to those who perished on the M.V. Barima is not words of condolence alone. It is the assurance, given and kept, that the lessons of that night will be learned, that those responsible, if any, will be held to account, and that no Guyanese family will again be made to wait at a stelling for news that never comes. May those who were lost rest in peace, and may those who mourn them find strength.
Ian McDonald
At this time of great sorrow, we also mourn the passing of Ian McDonald, one of the Guyana’s greatest sons whose multi-faceted contributions to Guyana, particularly in public service and literature and the arts, as poet and novelist, have played an important role in creating a modern nation sensitive to sports, culture, and the acquisition of knowledge. He taught us many things – the importance of reading, the beauty of cricket, the sustaining life-force of poetry, the magnificence of the Essequibo, and our place in the larger West Indian family. A man of multiple talents, compelling modesty, inquisitive mind, quiet charm, great knowledge and wisdom and a winner of the Guyana Prize, he has made his mark on modern Guyana by making us a better people. Our condolences to Mary and his family.
