Commission of Inquiry into ill-fated MV Barima tragedy likely to begin this month

The Com­mis­sion of In­quiry, ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the Ju­ly 18 cap­siz­ing of the M/V Bari­ma that re­sult­ed in the deaths of more than 100 peo­ple, says it is com­mit­ted to con­duct­ing its work “in­de­pen­dent­ly, im­par­tial­ly, thor­ough­ly and ex­pe­di­tious­ly, with­out fear or favour”, and in ac­cor­dance with its terms of man­date.

The MV Bari­ma, an 87-year-old state-owned pas­sen­ger fer­ry cap­sized and sank off the coast of Guyana as it made its way from George­town to Port Kai­tu­ma, a small vil­lage with­in the Bari­ma-Wai­ni ad­min­is­tra­tive re­gion, re­sult­ing in Guyana’s dead­liest mar­itime dis­as­ter with 73 con­firmed deaths and 30 oth­ers miss­ing and pre­sumed dead.

Prime Min­is­ter Mark Phillips had de­spite the of­fi­cial man­i­fest in­di­cat­ing that 116 pas­sen­gers and a crew of 17 had been on board the ves­sel, the au­thor­i­ties be­lieve that 179 peo­ple in­clud­ing the crew mem­bers were on the ves­sel when it cap­sized af­ter be­ing hit by a large wave.