Mining camp guard died from drowning – post-mortem

A POST-MORTEM has found that the security guard fished out of the Mazaruni River Tuesday last died from drowning.Relatives of the former Guyana Defence Force soldier, Boris Leslie Blair, 24, of Berbice are of the opinion that he died under suspicious circumstances, because the mining company he worked for in the Mazaruni gave conflicting reports of his death.
The Guyana Chronicle understands that Blair was responsible for security at a mining camp. He, however, left the camp site last Sunday in the night to visit a shop with three others when the boat they were travelling in capsized. His body was recovered two days after being sighted in the Mazaruni River under a “dragger.”
In an invited comment, Divisional Commander; ‘F’ Division Senior Superintendent Ravindradat Budhram noted that a handgun and holster were also recovered. He noted that the post-mortem report revealed that Blair died of drowning and injuries consistent with bruises received from rocks as the body drifted in the Mazaruni River.
Reports revealed that the small boat which Blair was in slammed into an object in the river resulting in its four occupants being hurled overboard.
Those in the boat told the police that they heard Blair breathing loudly and swimming towards a log; they didn’t see him after that and his body did not surface.
The four men used a small boat from Blair’s camp when the accident occurred at 21:00hrs last Sunday night. None of them were working when the collision happened.
According to a miner in the district, the security guard was in charge of overlooking a camp and the dredge box to make sure that no one tampers or does anything illegal at the site. Normally, the security also looks over workers at the site to ensure that no one leaves and visits any illegal shops in the area.
The miner said that although many of the security guards claim that they don’t leave their posts to visit these shops, they actually do, leaving the camp vulnerable. They would normally claim that they would go hunting, which is also illegal, but they use this excuse anyway to visit the illegal shops.
“We have been calling on the GGMC for years to shut down the illegal shops which cause problems for all the miners in the interior,” the miner told this publication.