The Guyana gov­ern­ment says the po­lice are con­duct­ing “ a com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion” in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to the MV Bari­ma cap­siz­ing last Sat­ur­day night, re­sult­ing so far in the deaths of 27 peo­ple and the res­cue of 69 oth­ers.

The au­thor­i­ties say the search con­tin­ues for the es­ti­mat­ed 70 peo­ple still un­ac­count­ed for af­ter the 87-year-old ves­sel sank as it made its way from George­town to Port Kai­tu­ma, a small vil­lage with­in the Bari­ma-Wai­ni ad­min­is­tra­tive re­gion of the coun­try.

Prime Min­is­ter Mark Phillips told a news con­fer­ence on Mon­day night that 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.