Relatives of victims of the MV Barima tragedy say they remain unaware of when and where the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) will meet families in Port Kaituma and Mabaruma to gather statements, with some complaining that they have received no communication from the commission about the planned engagements.
The relatives told Kiskadee Watch yesterday that they had not been informed of the proposed meetings, while others said they were unaware that the commission intended to collect statements from families in the affected communities.
Their concerns continue to raise questions about how effectively the commission is communicating with those most affected by the July 18 disaster, which claimed 73 lives with 76 people rescued and dozens others unaccounted for. The media are also often left in the dark regarding the ongoing work of the CoI.
The Commission has paused its oral hearings and is expected to resume these on November 10. However, it told the public that in the interim it would be gathering statements from survivors in their communities. Relatives of victims also expect to be spoken to.
Samantha Lewis, who lost her son and grandson in the tragedy, told Kiskadee Watch yesterday that she would have made arrangements to travel to Port Kaituma had she known about the planned meeting in advance. “No one call to notify us. If I had known, of course I would have gone to Port Kaituma,” she said, adding that she was planning to travel there this week.
Lewis said she would have already booked a flight had she received timely information and would readily attend any meeting held in her community. She recalled that on the last occasion when the commissioners went to interact with families in those communities, she was only informed the night before the meeting, leaving little time to make the necessary arrangements.
“They cannot notify people so late. People have to make preparations to reach. People in the community are not aware of what is happening,” she expressed.
Apart from this, Lewis shared that she is struggling financially following the deaths of her son and grandson, as her son had been the family’s breadwinner.
She questioned why the families were still waiting for compensation and expressed frustration that repeated meetings had not resulted in any meaningful assistance. “The President should have already compensated us. Coming to keep meeting after meeting and it’s the same thing. No compensation so far,” she said.
Lewis recalled that at a previous meeting, families were told that assistance would be provided in the long term, but she said she did not understand what that meant in practical terms.
She also shared how she had to do a surgery last month in Mabaruma and sought assistance from the HEART initiative, appealing to officer Cornell Shepherd for help even for transportation. None of these efforts yielded any positive results, she said.
Meanwhile, Royston Frank, whose son Rawle Frank died in the disaster, said he was unaware of the commission’s plans to gather statements in the interior communities, noting that a schedule should be made public so relatives could make arrangements to participate. “They should be publishing the schedule of where they are going and when,” he said, describing the process as a waste of time.
Frank, who previously urged the commission not to proceed without ensuring that crucial evidence was secured, said he was dissatisfied with the process for submitting information to the inquiry.
He recalled travelling to the Arthur Chung Conference Centre with other relatives to submit evidence but said they were unable to do so because the commission’s secretary was unavailable. He said they ultimately decided not to leave their applications because there was going to be no written confirmation that the documents had been accepted.
Louvicia Poon also said she had not been informed of the planned engagements. She has so far attended three meetings but felt that the discussions had repeatedly covered the same ground without providing the answers families were seeking. “Three times I went to a meeting and it’s one thing over and over,” she said, adding that nobody had contacted her about the CoI.
The commission began its public evidentiary hearings in October after months of preparatory work, including the collection of documents from state agencies and the identification of potential witnesses. Its investigation is examining the circumstances surrounding the sinking, including the vessel’s condition, its operation and the search-and-rescue response.
Discussion