Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The loss of chil­dren has be­come the most heart­break­ing as­pect of Guyana’s worst mar­itime dis­as­ter in liv­ing mem­o­ry, with Prime Min­is­ter Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips ad­mit­ting that the tragedy has deeply af­fect­ed him as the na­tion con­tin­ues to search for sur­vivors and re­cov­er vic­tims.

As the death toll from the MV Bari­ma fer­ry cap­siz­ing ris­es to 53, Trinidad and To­ba­go has joined the search and re­cov­ery ef­fort, with the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) de­ploy­ing an air­craft, a Coast Guard ves­sel and 27 per­son­nel, in­clud­ing sev­en divers, to as­sist Guyana’s re­sponse.

Dur­ing an emo­tion­al ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Phillips said the deaths of young pas­sen­gers were what weighed most heav­i­ly on his heart.

“The fact that we have many chil­dren who would have lost their lives in this trag­ic in­ci­dent. Those chil­dren had a bright fu­ture ahead of them, es­pe­cial­ly at this time in Guyana. And I re­al­ly, re­al­ly grieve and sym­pa­thise with the fam­i­lies for all their loss, es­pe­cial­ly those young chil­dren.” 

The MV Bari­ma cap­sized and sank on Sat­ur­day while trav­el­ling from the Guyanese cap­i­tal of George­town to Port Kai­tu­mas. 

Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali has since pro­claimed to­day through Fri­day as three days of na­tion­al mourn­ing in ho­n­our of the vic­tims of the tragedy.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, the na­tion­al flag will be flown at half-mast on Gov­ern­ment build­ings and oth­er ap­pro­pri­ate lo­ca­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Phillips said his im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty is en­sur­ing griev­ing rel­a­tives re­ceive an­swers.

“Bring­ing clo­sure is very im­por­tant to me at this stage, work­ing with the fam­i­lies and bring­ing clo­sure to them.”

Phillips de­scribed the sink­ing of the MV Bari­ma as the worst mar­itime in­ci­dent Guyana has ever ex­pe­ri­enced, call­ing the on­go­ing re­sponse a “com­plex dis­as­ter.”

“The whole op­er­a­tion that we are en­gag­ing right now, the res­cue op­er­a­tion and at the same time the re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion, should be deemed a com­plex dis­as­ter.”

Phillips al­so praised what he called a whole-of-gov­ern­ment re­sponse, along­side pri­vate com­pa­nies, fish­er­men and emer­gency agen­cies.

“We have since res­cued 76 per­sons, male, fe­male, adults and chil­dren and in­fants.” He cred­it­ed the Coast Guard, po­lice, mar­itime au­thor­i­ties and lo­cal fish­er­men for sav­ing lives.

Phillips re­vealed that Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali re­mains on the ground over­see­ing op­er­a­tions per­son­al­ly.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ad­dressed mount­ing ques­tions over the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the dis­as­ter, say­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors have al­ready un­cov­ered sev­er­al ap­par­ent breach­es of es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures.

How­ev­er, he stressed that a full, in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion would de­ter­mine ex­act­ly what hap­pened.

Phillips added that while that process un­folds, Gov­ern­ment has al­ready be­gun re­view­ing mar­itime safe­ty and stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures.

He al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the out­pour­ing of sup­port from across the Caribbean, in­clud­ing as­sis­tance from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I want to thank the wider re­gion, all coun­tries that have since of­fered sup­port and ex­pressed their sen­ti­ments and words of en­cour­age­ment at this un­for­tu­nate and dif­fi­cult time in the lives of the peo­ple of Guyana.”

TTDF ramps up sup­port for Guyana’s search and re­cov­ery ef­fort

The Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) says it con­tin­ues to sup­port Guyana’s re­sponse to the mar­itime tragedy.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the TTDF said it con­tin­ues to pro­vide sup­port to Guyana fol­low­ing a re­quest for as­sis­tance re­ceived on Sun­day evening, in re­sponse to the trag­ic mar­itime in­ci­dent.

It said an air­craft was im­me­di­ate­ly de­ployed as part of its rapid re­sponse, not­ing that it has al­ready “com­plet­ed three flights be­tween Trinidad and Guyana from Mon­day to to­day (Tues­day), sup­port­ing search and res­cue op­er­a­tions.”

TTDF al­so con­firmed that a T&T Coast Guard ves­sel was dis­patched on Mon­day. It said the ves­sel is equipped to sup­port search and re­cov­ery ef­forts and in­cludes a team of divers as part of its em­barked per­son­nel.

TTDF said there are 27 per­son­nel dis­patched, of which 7 are divers. How­ev­er, it could not re­lease ad­di­tion­al op­er­a­tional de­tails.

The De­fence Force reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to as­sist­ing Guyana dur­ing the cri­sis, stat­ing that it “re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing along­side re­gion­al part­ners in pro­vid­ing time­ly as­sis­tance and sup­port dur­ing this dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od.”