It took the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard more than four hours after the coordinates were mapped to deploy its offshore patrol vessel, the GDFS Shahoud, to the disaster site where the MV Barima sank.

Although a distress signal was received by the Timehri Tower just after 10:30 pm and the coordinates were dispatched to the Coast Guard, the Commission of Inquiry was told that it was not until 1 o’clock the following morning that the Coast Guard knew for certain that it was the MV Barima that was sinking.

Appearing before the Commission of Inquiry this afternoon, Lieutenant Coast Guard Rolwyn Heywood explained that he was on duty on Saturday July 18, 2026 when he received a distress alert message from the Timehri Control Tower at 10:51pm.

The alert indicated that a vessel was in distress, and at 10:52 pm Heywood said he acknowledged receipt of the message while based at the GDF Coast Guard Headquarters in Ruimveldt, Georgetown.

It was explained that an analysis was conducted.

An updated position was subsequently received and it was revealed that the distress signal was emanating from a location near the Pomeroon.

Heywood testified that a report was generated and at 11:10pm, and that report was submitted to the Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard, Commander David Shamsudeen, who was at home at the time.

The information was also dispatched to the GDF Coast Guard Base in the Pomeroon, and at around 01:00hrs on the July 19, 2026, a team from that location arrived at the site.

However, it was not until 03:30hrs on July 19, 2026 that GDFS Shahoud was deployed with Lieutenant Coast Guard Heywood transitioning from the on-duty officer to the navigating officer for the vessel.

“By then they had verified that indeed a vessel was in distress. All assets were deployed to the location which included the GDFS Shahoud. So, I was deployed on GDFS Shahoud as the navigation officer,” he told the Commission.

But questioned by Commissioner Hayden Pritchard why it took the Coast Guard approximately four hours to deploy the GDFS Shahoud, Heywood explained that during that period they were not sure what vessel had been in distress.

“At this point, we were still trying to figure out the nature of the distress, and what is really going on. At this point we don’t even know if it is MV Barima. We just know that it is a distress and we have an EPIRB signal. If we had known, at this point in time it was MV Barima, we know is a lot of people, it should be a lot of people, we need all assets. Because what you don’t want to do, you don’t want to receive a distress signal and one not respond, also two, let’s say a vessel is drifting, you wouldn’t need all of your assets deployed at this point in time,” Heywood explained.

He testified that it was just after 01:00hrs on the morning of Sunday July 19, 2026 that they knew for certain that it was the MV Barima that sank.

After departing Ruimveldt, Georgetown at 03:30hrs, Heywood and team arrived at the general area of the coordinates at around 07:30hrs on July 19. The voyage took approximately four hours due to the size of the vessel, he explained.

“We didn’t see anything until 7:30hrs when we noticed a fishing boat. So, we pull up that fishing boat. We had a conversation with the person on board. The guy identified himself as Haresh Singh and I also noticed that there were two police ranks on board that vessel. On further questioning him, he said that he had 11 survivors but they were in need of urgent medical attention, so he needed to get in to shore. We then instructed him to carry out the mission, because we felt comfortable that there were two police ranks on board that vessel,” Heywood recalled.

The Coast Guard Officer said he immediately started the coordinating efforts, explaining that at the time there were a total of six coast guard vessels on site including the one driven by him and 12 civilian vessels including fishing boats and assets from MARAD.

“When we got on scene, nobody was in command before we get on scene. There were just vessels conducting search but when we got on scene we took command immediately. We started organizing everything. You should search here; you should search here. So, search efforts weren’t wasted,” he told the Commission.

At around 08:50hrs, the Coast Guard Officer recalled seeing multiple life rafts but they were all empty, the Commission was told.

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