The MV Barima was old. Really old. The passenger ferry had been hauling people up and down Guyana’s coast for 87 years before it rolled over in the dark and sank late on a Saturday night. By the middle of last week, officials said around 100 people were feared dead, which would make it the country’s worst sea disaster in decades.
The boat left the capital, Georgetown, at 3:15 p.m. on July 18, headed for Port Kaituma, a remote town in the northwest that you basically can’t reach except by water and river. It never made it. About seven miles offshore, the ferry began taking on water and capsized. A distress call reached an air traffic control tower at 11:01 p.m., and within minutes, survivors say, the ferry was gone.
How a Routine Trip Turned Into a Nightmare
This was not some tourist cruise. The Georgetown to Port Kaituma route is about 240 kilometers and takes many hours by sea. For the roughly 5,000 people who live in Port Kaituma, the ferry is a lifeline. It brings food, medicine, and family members back home. And this trip fell right in the middle of the July and August school holidays, so the boat was packed with kids heading to visit grandparents in the northwest.
One survivor described the ferry suddenly tilting in the night while passengers slept in their hammocks. Brenda Atkinson said she talked to her daughter Alicia at 1 a.m., when Alicia was still aboard with her young son and daughter. Hours later, Brenda woke up to news that the boat had gone down. That kind of story got repeated over and over as the search stretched into days. Officials called it the country’s worst marine disaster in decades.
The Manifest Said 133. The Real Number Was Closer to 179.
Here’s where this thing gets messy. The official manifest listed 116 passengers and 17 crew, so 133 people total. That’s the number authorities went with at first. Then they reviewed footage of the boarding process and realized the real count was closer to 179.
How does a difference like that even happen? Because a bunch of people simply weren’t on the list. Rescuers found that at least 32 people pulled alive from the water were never recorded on the manifest at all. If dozens of survivors weren’t counted, nobody could say for sure how many others boarded without being logged. That single problem threw off every rescue calculation and left families with no clean answer about who was actually on that boat. It also raised an obvious question about how a government ferry keeps track of the humans it carries. The unreliable passenger list is now one of the biggest issues investigators are chasing.
Survivors Say the Boat Was Packed With Cargo
People who lived through it kept saying the same thing: the ferry was overloaded. Not just with passengers, but with heavy stuff jammed into every corner. Survivors described engines, a few vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, large fuel containers, and commercial goods packed tightly below deck.
A survivor named Leon Murray told reporters the boat felt more crowded than the dozens of other times he’d made the trip. “The people load, load, load the steamer,” he said. Another survivor claimed the ferry had engine trouble shortly after leaving, and that instead of turning back, the crew tried to fix it out at sea. Passengers said their worries about water coming into the vessel got brushed off as normal.
The government tells a different story. Officials said the manifest showed the boat had capacity for more than 300 passengers and 284 tons of cargo, and that it was carrying 268 tons when it went down, which would put it under the limit. They admit the conflicting accounts make it too early to say what really happened. But when survivors and officials disagree this sharply, families tend to believe the survivors.
The Captain and Crew Are in Police Custody
The captain and at least one other crew member were detained after the accident. The reason: two crew members tested positive for cannabis during medical exams done after the ferry sank. Loading staff were also suspended.
Prime Minister Mark Phillips launched an investigation into possible negligence by the crew leading up to the wreck. Public Works Minister Juan Edghill confirmed the crew was in custody at a press conference. Between the drug tests, the overloading claims, and the crew’s decision to keep going after reported engine trouble, the people running that boat are now the center of the whole inquiry. The prime minister promised legal consequences for anyone found responsible, whether for negligence or criminal wrongdoing.
Fishermen Got There Before Anyone Else Could
One of the reasons the anger has been so loud is how long the rescue took. Some survivors said they spent hours in the water waiting. The early response was slowed down by darkness and a lack of boats with scanners, so rescuers were relying on their eyes and ears in the pitch black. Companies in the oil and gas sector later sent vessels with scanners, and divers went into the wreck to recover bodies.
The real heroes that night were local fishermen. A popular fisherman named Haresh Singh, his brother Deonarine Singh, and several others heard the call for help and headed straight into rough water in the dark. They cut their boats loose and went. When they ran into the Coast Guard, they guided the officers through the unfamiliar waters near Hackney. At one point three children lost consciousness, and the fishermen raced back to shore so the kids could get treatment. Then they went back out again the next day to keep searching. Their courage in the dark is a big part of why anyone survived at all.
Why an 87-Year-Old Ferry Was Still Running
The obvious question everyone asked: why was a boat older than most people’s grandparents still hauling passengers? The government’s answer is that a replacement was already on the way. Guyana bought a new $12.7 million vessel from India in recent months to take over the route. The problem is the new ferry needs a special pier at Port Kaituma, and that pier isn’t finished yet. Officials said work on it is at an advanced stage.
The MV Barima wasn’t just left to rot, at least on paper. It was last dry docked in 2024 for major repairs, was running on new engines, and had more maintenance scheduled for October. Its listed safety gear included about 250 life jackets, two rigid life rafts, and six inflatable ones, which the government said was enough for its capacity. Still, safety equipment only helps so much when a boat flips at night miles from shore. The wreck has reopened a hard debate about aging government-owned vessels on remote routes.
Families Are Still Waiting for Answers
By the end of the week, officials said 76 of the roughly 179 people believed to be aboard had survived, and 53 bodies had been recovered as divers kept searching. That leaves the missing count high enough that the total death toll was feared to reach around 100.
Families gathered in the northern town of Charity, waiting for any word. Samantha Ramin lost two of her three children. Her young daughter’s body was found. Her baby boy was still missing. “I know my baby is in that boat,” she said. President Mohamed Irfaan Ali met with relatives of the victims, and assistance centers stayed open in Georgetown, Port Kaituma, and Mabaruma to give families official updates and support.
The government has announced an independent commission of inquiry to figure out everything from the safety checks and boarding process to how the crew acted and how fast the emergency response really was. Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago sent maritime resources to help with recovery. For the families in Charity, none of that brings anyone back. They just want to know who was on the boat, why it sank, and why help took so long. Those answers are still coming, one recovered body at a time.
