A North West District (NWD) pensioner drowned on Thursday as he was making his way home from Kumaka.
The dead man has been identified as Augustus La Cruz, 70, of Moruca.
La Cruz’s granddaughter, Cindy Prince, told Stabroek News via telephone that around 3pm on Thursday, she was told that her grandfather had left Kumaka to return to his Moruca home. He never returned.
She explained that he had borrowed a boat from a villager, Martina La Rose, to go to Kumaka and after he did not return she went in search of him.
Prince explained that La Rose saw an abandoned boat that was overturned in the river on her journey to Kumaka but paid it no attention.
However, when she arrived at Kumaka, she was told La Cruz had left.
Upon returning to Moruca, the woman went and informed her sons, who immediately went to the capsized boat and upon turning it over found a pair of slippers belonging to La Cruz floating under it. They, however, could not find La Cruz’s body nor his paddles.
Prince said, a passenger boat yesterday morning discovered the body floating in the river and he was fished out around 6.30 am.