Guyana Ferry MV Barima Capsizes Off Coast With 116 Aboard, 8 Rescued So Far

A ferry carrying 116 passengers and crew capsized off Guyana's coast late Saturday night, triggering an overnight search and rescue operation that was still underway as of early Sunday morning.

The MV Barima went down near Iron Punt while traveling its regular route from Georgetown to Port Kaituma in Guyana's Barima-Waini region, according to Public Works Minister Juan Edghill. The vessel had departed Georgetown at 3 p.m. Saturday, according to Demerara Waves.

A distress call came in at 11:01 p.m. local time, Edghill said in a Facebook Live post reported by the BBC and Demerara Waves. That set off a scramble involving both government and private boats and aircraft.

By 3:15 a.m., Edghill said eight people had been "retrieved alive." He gave no update on the fate of the remaining passengers and crew, and it was not clear as of early Sunday how many more were still missing or whether search teams expected to find additional survivors.

How rescuers found the ferry in the dark

The area where the Barima went down was described as extremely dark, according to a senior official cited by Demerara Waves. Crew members reportedly fired off flares to mark their position, and an aerial search team spotted the signal.

Roraima Airways, a private carrier that sent a plane to help search, obtained the coordinates and passed them to the Guyana Defence Force, according to Demerara Waves. Brigadier Omar Khan, the GDF's Chief-of-Staff, confirmed the Air Corps and Coast Guard were both deployed. "A tough morning. Air and marine teams mobilised," Khan told Demerara Waves.

Edghill said a second Transport and Harbours Department steamer was being sent to the scene to serve as a floating medical base, so treatment could begin as soon as more people were pulled from the water. Prime Minister Mark Phillips is leading the government's overall response, according to the BBC.

An 87-year-old vessel

The MV Barima was built in 1939 and measures 40 meters (131 feet) long, according to a VesselFinder listing cited by the BBC. That makes the ship 87 years old at the time it went down. Public Works officials said it was equipped with 250 life jackets, two rigid life rafts, and six inflatable life rafts, a supply that on paper covers more than double the number of people believed aboard.

Whether that safety equipment was accessible and used effectively once the vessel capsized remains unclear. No cause for the capsizing had been given by officials as of early Sunday morning.

A rocky first few hours of official communication

Demerara Waves, a Guyanese outlet with direct sourcing on the ground, reported that outside of the Guyana Defence Force's public statements, "the Guyana government had no crisis communications response to this potentially serious disaster." The outlet said there was no designated communications personnel to answer queries and provide official updates, and that Maritime Minister Deodat Indar, Director-General of Maritime Administration Stephen Thomas, and other senior officials did not respond when contacted.

When 116 people are unaccounted for on a capsized ferry, the public reasonably expects rapid, centralized updates from the agency responsible for maritime safety, not silence from the officials actually in charge of the vessel's oversight. Edghill's Facebook Live updates and the GDF's statements filled some of that gap, but neither the Maritime Administration nor the Maritime Minister had spoken publicly as of the last available reporting.

Region One Chairman Brentnol Ashley told Demerara Waves he first learned of the incident around 12:30 a.m. Sunday and was still awaiting information from search and rescue teams hours later.

Coverage gaps

The Times of India's report, sourced to AFP, was published Sunday afternoon India time and offered only a single confirmed line that the ferry capsized with 116 aboard, labeling the story "developing." It added no operational detail beyond what Guyanese and British outlets had already reported hours earlier.

The BBC's account, while accurate on the numbers and timeline, did not include the Demerara Waves reporting on the Guyana government's communications breakdown, an omission that leaves out a material part of how officials handled the crisis in its first hours.

As of early Sunday, the number of confirmed survivors stood at eight out of 116 people believed aboard, and Guyanese authorities had not said how many people remained missing or whether the search would continue into daylight hours. The condition of the vessel, the cause of the capsizing, and whether all onboard life-saving equipment was deployed remain unanswered questions pending an official government or maritime authority statement.