The body of Cheryl Peters, who had missing since last Friday after the ‘backtrack’ boat in which she was travelling capsized, was found floating in the vicinity of Number 74 Village yesterday morning.
Peters, a mother of five of Mocha Arcadia, was one of two persons who perished during the early morning mishap. Fishermen happened upon the woman’s partly decomposed body around 9 am yesterday and alerted the police at Springlands.
Post-mortem examinations performed on the remains of Peters and the other victim of the mishap, Hansrani, 48, known as ‘Buck’ of Annandale, East Coast Demerara proved that they died from drowning.
Hansrani’s body was found floating aback Number 64 Village around 3 pm the same day in fishing nets. Her daughter, Samantha Mohan survived the tragedy along with six other persons by clinging to a black bag containing cigarettes and other objects.
Hansrani was also holding on to the bag with Mohan, another woman and two children up to the time when help arrived some 15 minutes later. Mohan held onto her mother but as she got onto the rescue boat the woman slipped away from her grip and went under the vessel.
Reports are that the boat, belonging to a Surinamese known only as `Amit’ left ‘Aunty’s Boat Landing’ at Number 78 Village, Corriverton just after 5.15 am on Friday with nine passengers on board heading for Nickerie, Suriname. Shortly after it set off, however, the boat became entangled with a fishing seine.
After the boat started to take in water Mohan had telephoned the driver of the minibus, ‘Dougla’ who had transported her and her mother to Berbice from the East Coast earlier that morning and told him that the boat was going down and they needed help.
Fezal Mursaline, owner of ‘Aunty’s Boat Landing’ was on the landing when the call came through and immediately sent out his three speedboats to search for the persons.
Speaking to this newspaper last evening, Mohan who had to seek medical attention at the Georgetown Public Hospital said she is slowly recovering and has start to eat a little. She admitted that she felt a lot better after sharing her ordeal with reporters.
The family is busy making arrangements to have Hansrani buried tomorrow. At the time of this newspaper’s call, relatives of Peters had gone to visit Mohan and her family at their Nabaclis home. Relatives said Peters was to be buried today.
Meanwhile, Mohan said police found her passport which was in her handbag, along with a Razr cell phone, a black wallet with $27,080, US$1,500 and $5,000 in a separate pocket in the bag.
She said a relative recognized her passport from the picture on Friday after her mother was found but was told by the police that they could not hand it over. According to Mohan, her father who was in Berbice yesterday to witness the post mortem was told to return on Friday to uplift her passport and the death certificate.
Mohan questioned how the police could have recovered her passport and not mentioned anything about finding her bag. She stressed that at no time during the trip did she open the bag so the passport could not have fallen out.
None of the passengers on the ill-fated boat had been wearing life-jackets and Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee on Sunday urged Guyanese travelling to Suriname to use the legal Corentyne crossing.
