YET another attack by bees, although unrelated to previous attacks, is suspected in the death of 66-year-old Haniff Mohamed, a pensioner, whose body was discovered at Montrose Seawall, East Coast Demerara (ECD). This is the fourth such attack for October.

According to a press release from the Guyana Police Force (GPF), the discovery of Mohamed’s body was made at 17:15hrs on Monday last.

Police investigators were told that on Sunday last between 9:00 hrs and 18:00 hrs, several residents suffered bee attacks around the Montrose, ECD area.  Residents claim to have last seen the deceased alive on Sunday last at approximately 20:00 hrs.

After an Apiarist, commonly referred to as Beekeeper, was called to the area to tend to the bees, Police say it was then that Mohamed was discovered motionless on the ground. “He was then picked up by public-spirited persons and taken to the [Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation] GPHC where he was pronounced dead on arrival.”

While a post-mortem examination is still to be conducted on Mohamed’s body to determine the cause of death, the GPF acknowledged in its release that there appeared to be bee stings about his body.

OTHER ATTACKS

Earlier this month, the Guyana Chronicle reported that in another part of the country– East Berbice, Corentyne– three persons lost their lives after they were attacked by bees in three separate incidents. They were all pensioners.

For those suspected attacks, the Guyana Police Force had confirmed in a press release that those killed are John Sutherland, 57; Dorothy Muriel Adams, 58; and Sirpaul Hemraj, 62, called “Rishi”.

Sutherland, an amputee without his left foot, met his demise in the Eversham backlands after he left his home, along with two others, on a tractor to show them a rice field that had to be ploughed.

While in the field, Sutherland and one of his colleagues were sitting on the tractor’s fender when the driver made a sudden stop and shouted “bees!” The driver and the other man leapt from the tractor and ran to safety, leaving Sutherland, who could not escape with one leg quickly enough, behind. Sutherland’s body was discovered by the two men moments later with bee stings.

Adams, a housewife from Rotterdam, East Bank Berbice, succumbed after being stung by bees. An eyewitness, Stevon Ganpat, recalled it was a “sad” sight.

He noted that a person who lives at the house where the bees came from ran out of the house and a swarm of bees followed. He added that he noticed several animals were also on the road, running in different directions, seeking shelter from the bees and then he saw the woman’s upper body covered in bees.

“I see this woman walking coming and if you see bees on this woman. You can’t see her face! From her waist go up, you can’t see anything! That’s how thick the bees was [sic] and she just sat there on the bench at the bus shed and she hollering for help but nobody couldn’t help her,” Ganpat said recalling the horror of Adams’s death.

Hemraj, a Drainage and Irrigation (D&I) worker, of Mibicuri, South Black Bush Polder, was also unaidable when he was attacked by bees in the BBP back dam.

It is reported that Hemraj was sitting on his motorcycle while Chandradall Nankoo, 50, and Rajendra Mohan, 49, both rangers attached to the region and Michael Tyndell, 25, a mechanic attached to the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) were standing next to an excavator when someone shouted “bees!”

The trio, excluding Hemraj, ran in different directions seeking shelter while Hemraj was left behind.

About half of an hour later, the trio returned to the excavator where they saw Hemraj covered in mud and what appeared to be red swelling marks about his body. He was rushed to the Mibicuri Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The GPF’s Corporate Communications said post-mortem examinations for Adams and Sutherland were to be conducted, however, no additional information was provided up to the time of publishing.