The Government of Guyana is now facing international pressure over the deadly MV Barima disaster after the Institute for Action Against Discrimination (IFAAD), led by former Georgetown Mayor Pt. Ubraj Narine, formally petitioned key global human rights bodies to intervene.

In letters seen by Village Voice News and dispatched on August 3, 2026, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, IFAAD called for urgent external scrutiny of what it describes as serious failures by the State in both preventing and responding to the July 18 maritime catastrophe.

The MV Barima, an 87-year-old state-owned ferry operating under the Ministry of Public Works, capsized late that night off the Pomeroon River while travelling from Georgetown to Port Kaituma, leaving dozens dead, missing, and injured in one of the country’s most devastating transport tragedies.