“The boat cant over and gone” …survivors recount horror of MV Barima capsizing

Jul 20, 2026 News

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…recall seeing babies washed away as they slept 

(Kaieteur News) – The MV Barima left Georgetown at 3:15 p.m on Saturday, bound for Port Kaituma in Region One with 116 passengers and 17 crew members aboard. By 11:01 p.m., an air traffic control tower in Timehri had received a distress call. Within minutes, survivors say, the decades-old ferry was gone, flipped and sunk in the dark waters off the Pomeroon coast near Iron Punt.

As of Sunday morning, authorities confirmed 67 people rescued, with search and rescue teams from the Guyana Defence Force, Coast Guard, and private vessels continuing the search by air and sea.

President Irfaan Ali, currently out of the country, said he was “deeply distressed” by the capsizing and pledged that “no effort will be spared” in the rescue mission. Public Works Minister Juan Edghill confirmed the vessel carried 250 life jackets, two rigid life rafts, and six inflatable life rafts.

But for the people who were aboard, the disaster unfolded in a matter of minutes and for some, it tore entire families apart.

“It ain’t even tek four minutes and gone” recounted Leon Murray who boarded the MV Barima in Georgetown with eight members of his family. Only he and his 27-year-old son, Leron, are known to have survived.

He said his family: his wife, his 15-year-old daughter, and four grandchildren ranging from three to seven years old were asleep when the ferry went down.

“We were sleeping and dem (family) get tie off suh dem couldn’t move,” Murray said. “By time I ketch myself, I was already overboard.”

Murray said he was pulled under and had to fight his way to the surface. “Me geh fuh slide out,” he said. “When me geh cover down in this boat, me paddle and float up, when me meet up top, me grabble a life jacket.” After roughly two hours in the water, he lost his life jacket and clung instead to a floating ice box, along with several other survivors, until rescuers reached them around 4 a.m.

“Was sheer people round me, all over calling fuh help but nobody can’t help,” he said.

Murray said he had traveled on the steamer many times before without incident, but that this trip felt different. He claimed the vessel was overloaded well beyond its usual capacity, packed with cargo including rations, chicken, pork, and beef, in addition to passengers.

“The people load, load, load the steamer,” he said. “They overload the steamer… it was packed, packed, packed all downstairs.”

He said the boat had engine trouble hours before it capsized. Around 7 p.m., he said, one engine cut out, and rather than turning back to Georgetown, the crew stopped to make repairs at sea before continuing the voyage. He also said a passenger had warned crew members the boat was taking in water around 8 p.m., and was told it was “normal.”

“Sailors and captain didn’t announce difficulties,” Murray said. “Dem didn’t have time for that. Just the boat cant there was no time, in four minutes and it was down.”

Murray who was treated and subsequently taken to the Essequibo Technical Institute (ETI) said he has not left for his home since being brought ashore. “Me got to witness me family float,” he said. “When I witness dem me got to see where dem guh put the bodies.”

“I try to grabble my baby but the box knock he out my hand”

Another survivor, Elena Moonsammy was traveling with her two-year-old and six other children when the ferry capsized. She said the vessel had cargo boxes stacked at the rear, and that a wave caused the boat to tilt sharply, sending water rushing in within seconds.

“This boat mek a wave come and this boat mek a one cant right away, that is how the water rush in,” she said. “I had a two-year-old baby with six other kids and the box cover we down… I try to grab my baby but the box knock he out my hand.”

Moonsammy said she lost sight of the children in the chaos and had to fight to keep herself above water. She survived by holding onto a floating box alongside another woman.

“All I had to do was fight for myself,” she said. “Is seven of them I lost, five girls and two boys.”

Wayne Kitson, 18, of Port Kaituma, said the boat tilted and failed to right itself. “We just hear this boat cant pun one side and it barely cant back suh and mek one lean over,” he said. He lost his partner and his daughter in the capsizing and was himself injured.

Another survivor described the scene as parents searched for children who had been sleeping on the floor of the vessel when it went down. “A lot of parents were looking for their babies because they went to sleep on the ground and their babies just wash away,” he said.

“Everybody was really fighting and hollering”

Safraz Matabheek said his wife and three children remain missing. “The boat cant over and me cover up under that rail and me deh fight up to come out,” he said. “When me come out… me nah see them back. Me nah know if the boat cover them.”

“I did the big mistake I had done.”

Orman Cox, of Wauna, Region One, was travelling with his brother and a friend when the ferry rolled. He said he was pulled underwater as the vessel capsized.

“There was only one cant, so I turned right over. And I left inside, under the water,” Cox said. “When I got to the bottom… I had to drink water, because I wasn’t able to stop my breath.”

Cox said he stayed afloat by discarding his shoes and using his belt to latch himself to a bottle for buoyancy until other survivors reached him. He described banding together with four other passengers in the water, none of whom he had known before boarding.

“Five of us ended up pulling together,” he said. Rescue teams reached them roughly six hours after the ferry went down, he said, and had to help free him after his foot became caught.

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• MV Barima, Pomeroon, Port Kaituma, survivors

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