Pirate attack…Boat captain tells harrowing tale of survival

Jul 20, 2014 News

---

–    “Everybody saying I had something to do with the attack, they even threatening me but I honestly had nothing to do with it. I prefer to be dead than to live with this forever.”

By Romila Boodram

Although he worked on sea for more than 20 years of his life, Feroze Hack, the lone survivor of the piracy attack that occurred two Tuesdays ago, said in tears yesterday that he will never look back into that water again.

As he sat in a hammock at his Lusignan, East Coast Demerara home yesterday, a tearful and devastated Hack claimed that the piracy attack is something he has to live with for the rest of his life. He said that he’d rather be dead.
At around 22:00hrs on July 8, last, Hack alleged that three masked pirates stripped their fishing boat before attacking and kicking them overboard somewhere in Suriname.
He said that he survived the horrific attack by floating and balancing his body in the rough and sometimes calm water. He does not know anything about what happened to his crew members after the pirates drove their boat over them.
Those still missing are Vinesh Drunarine of Uitvlugt; Raymond Gomes and Chandrapaul Jallim of Recht-Door-Zee, West Bank Demerara.
Last Thursday, the body of 40-year-old Andrew Gopie washed up on the Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara foreshore, not far from where their boat drifted last Monday.
The boat is registered in Suriname and is operated by Guyanese Deochand Bharat and a Surinamese partner.
Relatives of the one dead and three missing fishermen accused Hack of being a part of the attack. Some of them even threatened to harm the survivor and his family.
They questioned why Gopie’s body and the boat were found in Guyana and not in Suriname where Hack alleged the attack occurred.
“How come he alone alive? If this thing happened in Suriname then how did the body end up so far?” one relative questioned.
The boat captain said that he himself cannot answer that. He suggested that the body and the boat drifted according to the direction of the wind and the current.
“I had nothing to do with the attack, nothing at all. I prefer I was dead than to be here and listening to all the things people saying. No one knows what I went through to be here today but they are pointing fingers,” Hack cried.
Recalling what transpired that night, the boat captain said that they had already worked for the day, had dinner and after chatting a bit were about to sleep when they heard an engine.
He said that they all got up and stood at the side of the boat when another vessel just the same size as theirs hit the back of their boat and “lashed” off one of the engines.
Hack added that the men shouted, “Allyuh get in the cabin and nah watch nobody face.”
“They come alongside our boat and tie off and then they come and broadside abbay. One of them stand at the back, one in front and one at the side. I didn’t see anyone else but someone had to be in their boat controlling it,” Hack said.
He added that after the men attacked them in the cabin, they called out for them one by one and tied their hands behind their backs with rope.
“They cut we off the seine and drive off we boat and their boat. The three of them were on we boat and maybe another one was driving their boat or more. They drive like a period of one and a half hour and they anchor we boat and then they stopped right next to we boat,” Hack recalled.
He said that the men had already beaten them. Drunarine was chopped to his hand and according to Hack, the men took a brick and hit him to his back- this mark was visible and the lashes across his hand.
“After they empty we boat and take away we phones they take we over to their boat and cut we boat and leave it to drift away. All this time we were lying on the cabin and they were not calling each other by names, they were saying, ‘Soldier’,” Hack said.
He added that the men drove about three and a quarter hours from where the pirates left their boat and stopped.
“They tear one of them boys jersey and tie we eyes and then they started kicking we overboard. I hear the splash in the water that’s how I know what they were doing,” the boat captain said.
According to Hack, he was the first one to be kicked overboard. “When I was in the water, I twist and twirl my hands and get it out because it didn’t tie tight because the rope was fat.”
He added that when he untied his hands and removed the cloth from his eyes, he saw three fishermen except Drunarine.
“We were together and when the pirates see we, they drive to we and circle we and we spit up and that was the last time I see them.”
Hack said that after that he tried to balance his body until he reached to shore in Suriname.
A search is still on for  the remaining missing fishermen.

---

---