Surinamese lawmen arrived in Guyana around 2.30 pm yesterday, ready to work with investigators at Springlands Police Station, to begin investigations in connection with a piracy attack on Tuesday last.
The traumatizing attack was carried out on a six-man crew from Crabwood Creek in Suriname waters and two suspects are in police custody assisting with the investigations.
A boat suspected to have been involved in the incident, along with a gasoline jar, is lodged at the Springlands Police Station.
Captain of the crew Orvin ‘Bird’ Harripersaud, 32, of Lot 20 Grant 1801 Crabwood Creek told Stabroek News that on Tuesday last he and his five crew members: Dhaneshwar Balgobin, Neelnarine Balgobin, Kubeerdhall Samlall, Dhaneshwar Sookdeo, and Ramesh Seenarine all of Crabwood Creek, left on a normal fishing journey on the Corentyne river.
Harripersaud said they docked around 8 pm on Tuesday at Snake Island. He added that just as they had put down their heads, they felt a boat butt them. “I get up and come out to see what it was,” he said, explaining that when he got to the top of the deck he saw three masked men in a small boat.
The men had a gun and cutlasses, he said, and they “told me out the light”. He did what they said and one of the men boarded his boat and made him tie up his crew members and then started to beat them “mercilessly”.
He added that as the other two men entered the boat they also dealt them lashes.
Harripersaud recalled that while the men were beating them they demanded their cellular phones along with the boat engine. He figured that the devastating incident went on for approximately two hours, after which, the pirates their boat and drove up the Corentyne River, where they untied the fishermen and made them jump out and swim for their lives. The man said they managed to swim to land where they met a Suriname national who called the police for them. He also said that he was able to make contact with a friend who gave them money to buy drinks and took bread for them to eat.
He said the police took them into custody for some 11 hours and they had to give statements.
Harripersaud said that they were released and told they could return to Guyana, he stayed back along with a crew member to show the Surinamese officers where the incident occurred.
Meanwhile, Harripersaud said persons told him that a man was “selling a gas tank in Crabwood Creek”. He said he went and checked the tank and recognised it as his, since it had “a piece of twine I had banded it with” and he took the man to the police station.
The man told Harripersaud that he had found the tank next to “a blue boat”, and he later led Harripersaud and the police to the Scottsburg beach where the boat was. The suspect said that he came across the boat while catching crab.
Harripersaud said someone else told him on Sunday that a person was selling three fuel containers at the Springlands Market. He added that he rushed there and saw the jars he had used for the trip and retrieved them.
Police investigations are continuing.
