-recalls days of searching and retrieving bodies
Leader of the Opposition Azruddin Mohamed yesterday renewed calls for Public Works Minister Juan Edghill to resign over the MV Barima tragedy, arguing that the minister must be held accountable as search teams continue recovering bodies from the Pomeroon River.
Speaking with reporters while participating in the search and recovery operation, Mohamed described the emotional toll of spending the past four days searching for victims, including the recovery of a two-year-old child.
“We’re out here for the past four days, since Sunday,” Mohamed said, explaining that his team travelled by boat from Georgetown to the area where the MV Barima sank before beginning search operations on Monday morning.
He recounted that one of the first recoveries was the body of a two-year-old girl.
“That was an experience and a half,” he said, adding that search teams have since recovered bodies along the waterway leading toward the site where the ferry went down.
Mohamed warned that as more time passes, the condition of the bodies could make visual identification impossible.
“If we continue to have the bodies out here even longer, you have to do DNA because the families cannot identify these bodies,” he said.
Turning to the issue of accountability, Mohamed insisted that Minister Edghill should resign before any parliamentary action is taken.
“Before we reach to the parliamentary level, Edghill must resign. He must be held accountable,” Mohamed declared.
He said that he had been informed that some crew members had been taken into police custody and argued that the minister should also be subjected to investigation.
Mohamed described the sinking as Guyana’s largest national tragedy since the 1978 Jonestown mass suicide and maintained that responsibility extends beyond the crew.
Asked why he believed the minister should be blamed despite reports of operational breaches and allegations that two crew members tested positive for cannabis, Mohamed said he had received information from relatives of crew members suggesting that operators were pressured by senior officials regarding vessel operations.
He further criticised what he described as failures in the passenger manifest system, arguing that authorities were unable to determine with certainty how many people had boarded the vessel.
“They don’t even know how much persons went on the vessel. Right now we are out here; we have nothing to work with to know how much we have to look for,” Mohamed said, adding that the reported number of passengers had changed repeatedly.
Mohamed also rejected the prospect of a locally managed investigation into the disaster, responding “of course not” when asked whether he would support one.
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