Search for missing fisherman called off
THE search for missing fisherman Shafeek Khan was called off yesterday, after the last efforts to find him were unsuccessful on Monday. A party of other fishermen, accompanied by police ranks, had gone out into the Atlantic Ocean but returned without having found any trace of Khan.
His brother, Rasheed Khan told the Guyana Chronicle they ventured up to Tiger Beach but abandoned their quest after failing to locate the body.
They had been searching continuously for more than a week, from a base in Essequibo although they live at Vigilance, East Coast Demerara.
However, they have not given up hope of the body surfacing, because they would like to have the corpse wash ashore and give him a proper funeral,  as a closure.
Shafeek Khan called ‘Baby’, of Lot 17 Vigilance and four others had departed the Meadow Bank wharf in Georgetown, about 15:00hrs on February 4.
The fishing crew of five included Ganeshwar Reddy called ‘Smallie’, of Mon Repos; Damodar Khemraj, 33, known as ‘Raco’, of Lot 199 Bladen Hall; Kumar Narine, 43, of Lot 70, of Vigilance, as well, and Richard Smith, 38, of Da Silva Street, Newtown, another city address.
They were in a vessel taking an additional outboard engine to rescue the victims who had been attacked and robbed by pirates in the Atlantic, but their craft capsized somewhere off the Suddie Coast, in rough Essequibo waters during heavy rainfall on Saturday night.
Reddy managed to reach ashore at Exmouth, Essequibo Coast, at about 15:45 hrs on Sunday, February 5, and was admitted a patient at Suddie Public Hospital but was, subsequently, transferred to Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
Police said, at 06:30hrs on Wednesday, February 8, the body of Smith alias ‘Maga’, 38, of DaSilva Street, Newtown, was discovered at Devonshire Castle foreshore, on Essequibo Coast, too, and is at Suddie Hospital mortuary awaiting a post mortem examination.
Rasheed Khan said some fishermen and relatives are still in Essequibo, optimistic of locating the remains of Khemraj known as ‘Raco’.
Meantime, the decomposing Narine was taken from Hampton Court foreshore, on Tuesday, February 7.
Pirates launched a spate of attacks on approximately 15 fishing boats off the coast of the Pomeroon River, between Friday, February 3 and Saturday, February 4.
The fishermen, numbering 19 were all accounted for after they were rescued and hospitalised,   recounting tales of the harrowing ordeal they experienced.
They said they were beaten with cutlasses and locked in a small cabin for hours without food and water.