In rough seas and darkness on the early morning of July 19, fisherman Haresh Singh reached a life raft carrying 11 survivors of the MV Barima tragedy, including children. But alongside the relief of rescue came heartbreaking accounts from parents who said they could not hold on to their children in the water.
Testifying at public hearings of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry resumed on Tuesday, Singh recounted the desperate effort to bring survivors to safety, and his later search for the sunken ferry.
Singh was among the first responders in the rescue operation following the capsizing. He said he was already in bed when he received a call from Regional Chairman Devin Mohan and Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Mandalall Ramraj.
He said he and his brother own two fishing boats and that they had both been fuelled in preparation to go out in the morning.
Singh said a fisherman known as “Spanish” joined his team and three boats departed the Hampton Court koker shortly before 1 am. He said two police officers asked to join the search, and he agreed to take them.
Singh testified that the water was rough and dark, with waves as high as a lamppost, which told him the tide was extremely strong. Flares in the sky guided the rescuers to four life rafts. The first three, he said, were empty. The fourth held 11 survivors, among them children.
Getting them aboard was only part of the ordeal. Planks were tied to the raft, and Singh climbed down to haul people in. “I go down from it, and with one hand, start putting some of them in the boat,” he said.
Singh described the survivors as being in bad shape. A woman said her child slipped away, and a male survivor said two of his children were within his grasp before the pull of the water proved too strong.
Singh said he was emotionally affected hearing the survivors speak about losing their loved ones.
“The first thing I do when I get them in the boat, I make sure I take a picture,” he said. He said WiFi access was spotty at best, but whenever he had connection, he sent the photos to the regional chairman as the rescue unfolded.
His testimony then turned to the search for the vessel itself. Singh said reports placed Barima at four different locations, and he made a case to search another area, based on his knowledge of the tide and the time the ferry went down.
An unusually foul smell drew his attention to an area. “This smell was totally wrong,” he said, unlike the river or the smell of fish. As he got closer to the area, he saw bottles of perfume, rum, bleach and a plastic bin floating in the water. He said bodies were also floating, and those were recovered by the Coast Guard vessels.
A yellow rope in the water helped convince him he had found the site. A GPS check put it about 15 miles offshore between Darkmouth and Better Success.
Then came the challenge of not losing the position. Rain and rough water set in. “I was a little scared,” Singh said. He sent his location to the Commanding Officer of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard, David Shamudeen, called for help, and flagged a large Coast Guard vessel in the distance.
At about 6 pm, he tied a flag with a red and green blink light to the rope, using gear fishermen normally use to mark their spots at night, “so passing vessels will know something was here,” he said.
The next day the rope had come off while divers were working from a Coast Guard boat. Singh went back out by fishing boat, a little over an hour from shore, and relocated the site using the GPS coordinates he had previously recorded.
“It was 55 feet of water when we measured it,” he said. He recalled finding the wreck around 1 pm or 3 pm on Monday, July 20.
The Presidential COI is investigating the capsizing of the state-owned ferry MV Barima on July 18, 2026. The ferry was travelling from Georgetown to Port Kaituma. Its terms of reference include the cause of the incident, whether maritime laws were followed, and how the search and rescue was carried out.