MV Barima -There are days like these

Jul 20, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

(Kaieteur News) – Everything comes to a pause. Writings already sent suspended. There is only one development to share a word about: the MV Barima. One word, and a whole barrel of pain. A disaster greeting long before the sun showed its face on a Sunday. Of all days, a Sunday. The hopes and prayers started with the first words of the 07:30 Mass at the Brickdam Cathedral. So many found, embraced, and cheered. So many still missing, leaving an empty space. Amid the manmade disasters on land in Guyana, there is this kind of grim disaster on the waters. The numbers are not looking too inspiring. The bells toll.

I read of 116 aboard. Then it was 133, when the crew was counted. Approximately eight hours after the news broke, 70 were rescued and close to that number still not in hand. A dismal consideration when only adults are involved. Children numbered among those onboard that now capsized ferry. A terrible new dimension added. My hope, my wish, my prayer, is that all are saved. Not one soul is lost. The odds of that happening are daunting. Ten miles from shore is almost as far as the other end of the world. Nevertheless, rescue operations are in full motion. The government has mobilised. Good. The national leadership is engaged and alert. Better.

Now is not the time to lose a minute debating the state of new helicopters. Nor to speculate about the number of lifejackets. Currently, there is a search and rescue operation going on, and that is where all eyes should be fixed. It’s where all Guyanese hearts should be committed. Every hour that passes is an hour that cannot be recovered. Reality that is hard and unforgiving creeps forward remorselessly. Another hour lost could mean that one more was lost. Too late to make it through the day for a mother, or a father, maybe a grandmother or a child. I saw some pictures and they were of very young children, some not close to 10, as yet.

It should emphasize to every Guyanese how fragile life could be. It does so to me. What’s taken as routine goes overboard and sinks in a heartbeat. Quite literally. In a flash, life races past the eye. Though far away and out of harm’s way, those are the images that register. Having been near to shattering disaster more than once, there is some idea of the shock that must have jarred many out of their sleep. A passenger boat slammed by a force of nature, a battering ram wall of water. Men, women, and children left naked and imperiled before the elements at their rawest.

I am hoping for two things to follow beyond this prayer dripping from my pen. They are the thoughts that rise, will not go away. The first is that the fewest are lost; and that search and rescue do not give way to salvage and retrieve. Indeed, like that ancient sage of a scribbler said: there is a time for laughing, and there is a time for mourning. Even if only a handful never makes it back, it is still one handful too many. However tiny. And whatever the number that is not found, there is still that tragedy to be faced by family and community: lost at sea. Gone to the depths. Lack of closure adds crisis to family calamity.

The second and final thought is that the people of this young country-from young leader(s) to largely younger citizenry to a place rich with young visions that still sparkle-arrive at a clear and deep appreciation of what is needed to make neighbor and others better. There is too much bickering and cursing. There is too much disagreeing, on the one hand, and too much demonizing and damning, on the other. There is a storehouse of riches, but of real riches there is too much poorness. In counting the hours, I am keeping vigil, counting the numbers being picked up, flashing across the screens. Let there be as many as could be.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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Brickdam Cathedral, Disaster, GHK Lall, MV Barima

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