MV Barima tragedy -would have handled differently

Oct 07, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – Things could have been different. I would have made allowance. But when it was the same stink and dutty story with the MV Barima tragedy, there was only one road left.

In the late hours of that fateful Saturday night of July, those early hours of Sunday morning, the little that was known amounted to this. The MV Barima was in serious problem, an unknown number of Guyanese was in dire peril. The dead had no time to welcome death, so swift was its coming, with some still groggy from sleep. Those who were about to die were clutching at foam and air for traction, unwilling to believe, to accept, that their time had come. The boat itself was in its death rattle, its last death roll. Then, that was it, other than survivors floating far and farther away.