Last missing man found dead

Relatives’ hopes of seeing Henry Gonsalves turn up alive, which were raised after they learned that his aunt Sherry Haynes, who survived the tragedy, had spoken to him, while she struggled to remain afloat, were dashed around 10.40 pm on Sunday, when his body was found.

Gonsalves’s body washed up on the shore at Number 67 Village and persons who had still been searching found him and informed the family, his mother, Louise Benjamin told Stabroek News yesterday.

She said though the news of her son’s death was devastating, she “thank the Lord that his body was found because if we did not find him now, we would not have been able to find him at all.”

Benjamin said that they had to rush to bury the body yesterday, as it was badly decomposed. “Henry was my second child [of three siblings] and my only son and the news is very hard, but God knows best,” Benjamin said.

Henry and his aunt, Haynes, had been missing and family members had already started to fear the worst, when Haynes turned up alive. She also gave them some hope that Henry might still be alive as she had spoken to him while on a sandbank some time on Saturday night, but on Sunday night, their hopes turned into grief.

Haynes, 40, who was wearing a lifejacket turned up alive around 6 am on Sunday at Number 57 Village after clinging to bucket and a bottle of water.

Her brother, Francis Gonsalves of Holland had told Stabroek News on Sunday that because she was still traumatized by the ordeal he did not question her further on this.

Haynes, a nurse of Brooklyn, New York, was exhausted from being in the water for so long that she fell asleep. When she woke up on the shore around 6 am on Sunday, after being in the water for about 36 hours, Henry was nowhere in sight. She looked around and spotted cows and soon after saw a man who assisted her on learning of her ordeal.

She contacted her relatives and was then taken to the Reno Hotel where she and her siblings were staying. They had travelled to Guyana two Sundays ago to scatter the ashes of their brother, Hector (Henry’s father) who died on October 6. They had already done so and had decided to visit relatives in Suriname.

This newspaper learnt that Haynes and her sister, Sheila Gonsalves, 64, a pensioner of Brooklyn, New York and Ena Hope were holding onto each other just after the incident when Sheila told Haynes that she was “drinking some water” and asked her to take her bag.

After that, Sheila went down and Ena, who has left to mourn her husband Royden and her two daughters, aged eight and three years old, followed.

The boat, which belonged to Roy Ramdass, had been hired by Ena Hope’s husband, Royden Hope to take her and the sisters along with their nephew, Henry to Suriname. Hope and her husband owned the Reno Hotel.

Ramdass, who also perished, was buried yesterday after his body was picked up on Sunday morning.

Up to yesterday, Haynes, the mother of an 18-year-old daughter, was still traumatized and was in seclusion. Hope’s brother, Guy said that she needed a lot of rest. He said she had related that “as the bucket full she kept emptying it…

“She was also on a sandbank and she kept praying and was focusing on staying alive for her daughter. She said God is in control and she put all her faith in God,” Guy said. “She is hurting because she watched Ena and Sheila going down but she is trying to hold on.”

He said she saw lights in the water but “no one was coming to them and I am angry that people did not see the urgency to help,” referring to a tug that was next to the boat landing where the search team left from.

“My sister was still alive then and if they had acted immediately my sister would have been alive today.” He was also “angry that the first boat that took the other two [passengers] did not turn back to see what was wrong.”

The first survivor to reach safety was Leslie ‘Heads’ Austin, 25, of Number 78 Village who swam through the rough waters to get help for the others and got to the Number 63 Beach around 8 pm on Friday.

He said the propeller of the boat became entangled with fishing seines and this caused the boat to capsize.

Though the vessel was equipped with enough lifejackets for everyone, Austin, Indranie ‘Birdlady’ Motiram and Ramdass were not wearing any at the time of the accident. Austin told this newspaper that he only put on his lifejacket after the accident occurred.

He said after the boat began to take in water he jumped out and tried to remove the seine from the engine’s propeller. He said a knife was in the tools’ bucket but he could not reach it fast enough.

The others on the ill-fated Sevi 2 who perished were Motiram, 49, of Crabwood Creek and Drupatie Bahagiloo called Nalini Ganpat, 45, of Hampshire, Corentyne.

Austin had told this newspaper that he assisted Ramdass, Henry, Motiram and another woman to hold onto the bow of the boat but they were panicking. He was trying to stay calm but “a woman was screaming and confusing me.”

Austin said a boat was passing and they tried to hail it but the noise from the engine made it impossible for the occupants to hear. He said that at that point, Henry Gonsalves begged him to swim to shore to bring back help for them.

He said he started to leave, but turned back as he was not sure what would happen to them if he left them there alone, but when they continued to scream, he decided to be brave and struck out for shore.

The man averaged that he swam for about two and a half miles, passing three channels and sand banks, praying all the way. According to him, when he hit the first sand bank he felt he had reached the shore and started to walk, but suddenly found himself deep in water again.

Exhausted, and panting for breath, Austin said, he even crawled in the muddy areas close to the sand banks. At one stage, he saw a boat flashing its light (apparently from the search team) and he called out but there was no response.

When he finally reached shore, it was at Number 63 Beach. Austin said he was so overjoyed, he somehow found the energy to run until he was able to meet persons who assisted in taking him to the landing the report what happened.

Guy said too that when Austin showed up, related what had happened and told the search team where the others might be “they did not go there.” He said Haynes told him Austin was captaining the boat at first and he was doing a good job, but Ramdass insisted on taking over and shortly after tragedy struck.

When this newspaper visited Ganpat’s home yesterday, her brothers, Dharmendra and Vivekanand Ghanpat said they were sure that the woman who had been screaming and confusing Austin was their sister.

They were very emotional as they imagined her “punishing in the water as she was dying. She was like that; she would scream for anything.” They said she was their only sister and they had shared a close relationship.

Her reputed husband, Lawrence Lamazon, said she left home around 8.50 am to go to Suriname where she traded clothing and perfume and would “walk and sell them at all the markets.”

He said he expected her to return the same day and when it got late and he did not see her he became worried. Calls to her cell phone went unanswered. He said she travelled often and when she could not return the same day, she would call him.

Dharmendra said he heard she had gone to Suriname and after he learnt about the mishap around midday on Saturday, he checked if she had reached home and began to fear the worst.

He said he telephoned the Springlands Police Station and gave the officers her name and a brief description of her. Around 2.30 pm he received a call that a body fitting her description had been recovered.

The officers also inquired whether she had tattoos on her hand and leg and he told them yes and headed straight to the Skeldon Hospital Mortuary where he identified her.

Her brothers said they were very grateful to have recovered a bag belonging to her with clothing and other items she had bought, as well as her watch and the gold jewellery she had been wearing, from the station.

They said the bag had a hole and they felt that she must have been clinging to it because it floated up close to where her body was found.

Dharmendra said he last saw his sister on Thursday at the market and she told him she was going to buy fish to take for Vivekanand who lived on the East Bank.

Her son, Vickram, said that he would normally go with his mother to do the business but that day she went without telling him. She called him about three times from Corriverton, though.

He said she was laughing and sounded happy and said to him that he didn’t get to go with her but that they would make a trip together before Christmas. According to him, his mother had just recently bought a Canter truck so that she could “drive and sell” instead.

The truck was at the workshop for minor adjustments, Vickram said, and he was supposed to go with her on Saturday afternoon to pick it up.

Over at Crabwood Creek, Motiram’s brother, Deonarine Seepersaud of East Bank Berbice said he went out with the search team around 10 pm in one of Ramdass’s two boats. But “the water was very rough and was rocking the boats; they [boats] could have capsized; the waves were not easy.”

He said they used small flashlights in the search and the boats kept mostly in the corner of the river because the captains said they couldn’t go further.

Seepersaud said too that the captain of the tug, which had a good light, refused to lend support when asked, saying he had to seek permission from his boss. He said three hours later the tug left the wharf with its barge without rendering assistance.

Motiram’s son, Ramchandar who arrived from New York on Sunday after hearing the news said that he learnt that the coast guard did not have any vessels to send out. He retorted that if that was the case “they should have used their professional training to help find them.”

The relatives are also claiming that when they pulled up the engine no seine was entangled on the propeller. According to them, they saw the seine after the fisherman pulled it up and it was not damaged.

Eleven passengers

There were initial reports that the boat had left Suriname with 10 passengers and a boat from ‘Aunty Landing’, which was empty, stopped and collected two of the passengers after the captain realized that the Sevi 2 was carrying too many people.

But yesterday this newspaper spoke to Fezal Mursaline of ‘Aunty Landing’, who said that his captain, Kevin called ‘Burnham’, took three passengers from Ramdass’s boat.

Kevin related that when he arrived in Suriname he saw Ramdass’s boat with 11 passengers, including one of Mursaline’s relatives, who is a trader in Suriname and a clothes vendor at the Skeldon market. He said he asked her to join his boat. She did so and shortly after two men who traded iguanas from Suriname joined him as well.

Mursaline said his captain did not have enough passengers and asked Ramdass to share a few more, but he refused and he left.

His captain told him the water was “extra rough as the tide was falling.” He said he only learnt of the mishap around 9.30 pm and at that stage he could not assist in the search as his captains had left since 6 pm.

Mursaline’s relative did not want to comment “because me have to travel often and me don’t want a problem.” However, she confirmed to this newspaper though that she along with two other had joined Mursaline’s boat at Suriname.