GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) — Guyana’s government is under pressure to explain why a state-run ferry sank over the weekend, killing an estimated 100 people, with officials telling an increasingly frustrated population to await the conclusion of an official investigation.
Authorities said that 76 of the 179 passengers believed to have been aboard the ferry survived the South American nation’s worst maritime disaster on record, and that 53 bodies have been recovered as divers searched for 50 more on Wednesday.
Dozens of Guyanese continued to gather in the northern town of Charity, hoping that the bodies of their missing loved ones would be found.
“I know my baby is in that boat,” said Samantha Ramin, who lost two of her three children.
Crews recovered the body of her young daughter, but her baby boy is still missing.
“I know he is down there. I know he is down there,” she said. “I want to see them find my baby.”
The 87-year-old ferry, MV Barima, had set sail on Saturday from the capital, Georgetown, to Port Kaituma when it began taking on water and capsized in Atlantic waters off the Essequibo coast. Though the ship’s manifest listed 116 passengers and 17 crew, authorities believe as many as 179 people were aboard.
A growing number of Guyanese are questioning why it took so long to rescue people, with some survivors telling The Associated Press that they spent hours in the water.
As the search continues, survivors also have complained that the vessel was overloaded with people and cargo, including heavy-duty engines, a few vehicles, large fuel containers, all-terrain vehicles and commercial cargo.
A survivor identified as Leon Murray told reporters that he felt the ferry was overloaded compared with the dozens of other times he traveled on it.
“The people load, load, load the steamer,” he said. “It was packed, packed, packed all downstairs.”
Murray and other survivors have told reporters that the ferry encountered engine problems just hours after its departure but that crews fixed it en route instead of turning back. He also accused crew members of ignoring suggestions that the ferry was taking on water: “They told us this is normal.”
Government officials have said that the ferry was under capacity in passengers and cargo but stressed that there are too many differing accounts of what transpired to reach a definitive conclusion.
Maritime Agency Director Stephen Thomas told the AP that officials are awaiting a comprehensive investigation that would determine details including the loading of the vessel and the role of supervisory personnel before reaching conclusions.
“We have nothing to hide,” Prime Minister Mark Phillips told reporters late Tuesday. “People will be held responsible based on the outcome, the results and the recommendations of that commission.”
He added: “Where negligence, misconduct or criminal wrongdoing is established, those responsible will face the full force of the law. There will be no exceptions and no tolerance for actions that place innocent lives at risk.”
Police already have detained the rescued captain and at least one other crew member whom they say tested positive for marijuana.
Asked why an 87-year-old ferry was still in service, the government said it was waiting on the completion of a special pier at Port Kaituma to accommodate a new $12.7 million vessel acquired from India in recent months to replace the MV Barima. Work is at an advanced stage.
The MV Barima was last dry docked in 2024 for major repairs and was scheduled for additional work in October.
Drake reported from Charity, Guyana.
FILE - People sit on the seawall as the sun sets in Georgetown, Guyana, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is expected to sign an agreement with Saudi Arabia as early as Wednesday that could potentially provide the kingdom with uranium enrichment capability for its civilian nuclear program. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says any deal signed by the U.S. would not lead to proliferation.
The deal — confirmed to The Associated Press by two people familiar with the decision who were not authorized to discuss details and spoke on condition of anonymity — could allow the building of a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia after a joint U.S.-Saudi study.
Though he wouldn’t confirm the deal, Rubio sought to head off emerging criticism of the decision under questioning by reporters about the risk that helping the Saudis fulfill their long-standing desire to enrich their own uranium could lead to new rounds of nuclear proliferation and competition in a volatile region.
“The U.S. is not going to reach any agreement with any country in the world that leads to the risk of proliferation,” said Rubio, who was traveling in the Philippines on Wednesday.
The agreement is not expected to include the International Atomic Energy Agency 's Additional Protocol, which would allow for more monitoring, inspections and verification, according to one of the people familiar with the decision.
The deal, which would last 30 years and involve U.S. firms in developing the program, is expected to be submitted for review to Congress, where it could face opposition.
The expected announcement comes during the war against Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel, in part, to wipe out Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has insisted its nuclear enrichment program is peaceful.
The White House and Saudi officials in Riyadh did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment on the decision, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Alexander Bollfrass, a nuclear expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, called the deal “a revolutionary new approach” to nuclear nonproliferation policy.
“The revolutionary aspect of this agreement is that the United States is not asking Saudi Arabia to abide by the highest possible safeguards, internationally monitored safeguards that are standard and are available today, but instead is willing to at least theoretically transfer highly sensitive technology without the same level of oversight that one would expect,” Bollfrass said.
Both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden tried to reach a nuclear deal with the kingdom to share American technology.
Nonproliferation experts warn any spinning centrifuges within Saudi Arabia could open the door to a possible weapons program for the kingdom, something its assertive de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has suggested he could pursue if Tehran obtains an atomic bomb.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to Saudi Arabia last year shortly before Trump visited and discussed building out the kingdom’s commercial nuclear power industry with his Saudi counterpart. The U.S. Department of Energy has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Already, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact after Israel launched an attack on Qatar targeting Hamas officials. Pakistan’s defense minister then said his nation’s nuclear program “will be made available” to Saudi Arabia if needed, something seen as a warning for Israel, long believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state.
Enrichment isn’t an automatic path to a nuclear weapon — a nation also must master other steps, including the use of synchronized high explosives, for instance. But it does open the door to weaponization, which has fueled the West's concerns over Iran’s program.
The United Arab Emirates, a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, signed what is referred to as a “123 agreement” with the U.S. to build its Barakah nuclear power plant with South Korean assistance. But the UAE did so without seeking enrichment, something nonproliferation experts have held up as the “gold standard” for nations wanting atomic power.
Rubio, as a Republican senator representing Florida, backed a bipartisan 2018 proposal that called for requiring Congress to approve any 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia. The bill was reintroduced by a group of Democratic lawmakers in March but has not passed into law.
Typically, 123 agreements — which authorize U.S. companies to sell nuclear technology abroad — go into effect unless veto-proof majorities of Congress pass joint resolutions of disapproval.
Rosemary Kelanic, the Middle East director at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank, said that uranium enrichment capability could give Saudi Arabia “a potent source of leverage to extract future concessions from Washington, including new security guarantees, by threatening to weaponize its program unless the United States promises enhanced military protection.”
“Giving Riyadh uranium enrichment could functionally enmesh the United States with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia forever,” Kelanic added.
Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, predicted the expected deal would benefit U.S. nuclear giant Westinghouse, which builds the large light-water reactors Saudi Arabia is seeking.
The Trump administration said last month it is providing $17.5 billion in loans to speed development of 10 new large nuclear reactors designed by Westinghouse to meet skyrocketing power demand from massive data centers. The new reactors could use the same design, Westinghouse’s AP1000, in the planned Saudi deal.
Sherman said the U.S. military is “bombing Iran because they insist upon enriching and reprocessing” nuclear material.
Now it appears that U.S. officials “are entering into an agreement with Saudi Arabia, giving them the green light to reprocess and to enrich, and the only difference I see here is that Westinghouse stands to make an awful lot of money on this deal, whereas the Iranians were not enriching American companies,” Sherman said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.
Price reported from Manila, Philippines. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Will Weissert contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, July 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines Wednesday, July 22, 2026. (Brendan Smialowski/Pool Photo via AP)
