Dozens Missing as a Guyana Ferry Capsizes With 116 Aboard
A passenger ferry, the MV Barima, capsized off Guyana’s coast while sailing from the capital, Georgetown, to Port Kaituma, carrying 116 passengers and crew. It issued a distress call late on Saturday. Prime Minister Mark Phillips said 53 people had been rescued by Sunday, with authorities hoping to find more in daylight. The cause is not yet clear.
The vessel carried around 250 life jackets and eight lifeboats, and a medical team was dispatched, but with fewer than half the passengers accounted for by mid-morning the toll could climb sharply. The disaster strikes a small South American nation in the throes of an oil-driven economic boom and simmering border tensions with Venezuela. The public works minister, Juan Edghill, said an “active search and rescue operation” was under way and that authorities were praying “for the safety of all”. Watch for a confirmed casualty count and early findings on why the ferry went down.