Guyana/Suriname river tragedy…

Oct 29, 2008 News

Crossing was illegal, hence no immediate formal search and rescue – Benn

Transport Minister Robeson Benn

The route used by the ill-fated Sevi 2 recently, when six persons lost their lives, was illegal, hence there was no immediate formal search and rescue capability.
This is according to Minister of Transport, Robeson Benn, who was responding in the National Assembly to an oral question without notice by leader of the Alliance For Change, Raphael Trotman.
At one point in time it appeared as though Guyana had no search and rescue capability, given that when the question was posed to Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, he said that it was not his responsibility.
One would have expected the Coast Guard to launch the search and rescue, since it falls under the purview of the Commander in Chief, President Bharrat Jagdeo.
Benn chose to offer an explanation, given that transport was his responsibility.
He did say that there was an ongoing investigation into what transpired, but he reiterated that, because the area is an unregulated point of departure and entry, that fact would have been the reason why there was no formalised response.
The body of the final victim from the ill-fated passenger boat which sank in the Corentyne River last Friday was recovered on Sunday.
The body of Henry Gonsalves was recovered at around 21:00 hours on Sunday night at the Number 67 Village Foreshore, Corentyne.
A source in the area said that fishermen had spotted the body as early as 16:30 hours, and eventually brought it to land.
There was some hope that Gonsalves would have been found alive, following reports by his sister Sherry Ann Haynes, who survived the ordeal, that he may have been stranded on a sand bank.
There were also reports that he may have been rescued by a Surinamese vessel and had been taken to the neighbouring Dutch republic.
Following her rescue early Sunday morning, after 36 hours of floating on the water, Haynes had reportedly told relatives that she and her brother had been marooned on a sand bank.
However, she had lost consciousness, and when she had awoken, he was nowhere around, since the water had already covered the sand bank.
So badly decomposed was Henry Gonsalves’s body that it was immediately interred in the Springlands Cemetery.