Rosignol boat captain feared dead after tossed overboard

A fishing boat captain of Rosignol, West Bank Berbice is feared dead after he was tossed overboard in the Corentyne River by masked pirates when they attacked his boat.

Mohamed ‘Saeed’ Yusuf who left home on Monday to go out to sea along with the other workers met his misfortune around 8 am on Wednesday.

He had grabbed on to the engine lead after one of the four pirates removed his mask and identified himself as ‘Knight,’ and pushed him overboard. The pirates carried two guns.

He then told the workers what he had done but by the time they ran out to check he had already disappeared in the water.

According to the owner of the boat, Latchman, the pirates had ordered the other workers into the fish pen and then asked Yusuf to “drive the boat to Suriname.”

Yusuf then told them that his heart was hurting and he needed his pills from the cabin.

One of them went to check for it but came out empty-handed. It was at this stage that disaster struck.

Latchman said the water bandits first removed a 60-hp engine from his boat and replaced it with a 48-hp engine that had been stolen from him only last week.

The boat was unable to move because of the missing engine lead. Without realizing that the boat was being robbed, the captain and crew from another boat came to their rescue.

The pirates then robbed them of a large quantity of fish, fish glue and a drum of gasoline worth over $1.5 M.

They also took the lead and used it on Latchman’s boat and destroyed the engine and then escaped, leaving the crew members stranded.

Yusuf’s wife, Zohora told this newspaper that in the afternoon when her grandson went to the fisheries he saw the police and heard people saying that the boat had been hijacked. She was not aware that it was “serious.”

It was not until around 9 pm that she received information that he had been thrown overboard and is believed to be dead.