Sascha Wil­son

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.