Mother's desperate wait for children and nieces missing after MV Barima tragedy

As the search for survivors of the MV Barima disaster continues, Samantha Ramitt is living every parent’s worst nightmare. Days after the passenger vessel capsized off Guyana’s coast, she is still waiting for news of her two children and two nieces who remain missing, clinging to hope that they will somehow be found alive. Missing are her two-year-old son, Vince Wong, eight-year-old daughter, Akeela Rodrigues, seven-year-old niece, Rubina Hernandez, and 12-year-old niece, Viviana Sadruddin. The tragedy has torn through three generations of the same family. Samantha’s mother, Helena Moonsammy, was travelling on the MV Barima with the children when disaster struck. She survived the ordeal, along with four others from the family, but the four children never made it back. Among the survivors is Samantha’s son, Renaldo, who endured hours in the open sea after managing to cling to a life raft alongside seven other passengers until rescuers arrived. His survival has offered the family a glimmer of hope amid overwhelming grief. But for Samantha, every passing hour without news of her younger children and nieces deepens the anguish. Instead of celebrating the miracle of one child returning home, she now finds herself anxiously scanning every rescue update and every list of those recovered, praying that the next piece of news will bring her children back. Across Charity, where survivors are reunited with loved ones and the bodies of victims are brought ashore, families continue to endure an agonising wait. For Samantha, the uncertainty is perhaps the hardest burden of all. While one son survived against the odds, four young members of her family remain unaccounted for, leaving her trapped between hope and heartbreak as the search continues. Like so many families affected by the MV Barima tragedy, she is holding on to the belief that somewhere, somehow, the children she loves are still waiting to be found.