GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali on Monday announced the establishment of a national body to coordinate, mobilise and foster the necessary work of healing following the July 18 sinking of the MV Barima, which has resulted in over 70 deaths while dozens remain missing.

Ali, in a broadcast, said that the national body shall be known as the HEART Initiative for hope, empathy, aid, resilience, and trust.

“Hope for the grieving. Empathy for the broken. Aid for the hurting. Resilience for the journey ahead. Trust that it will never be forgotten,” Ali said, adding that this initiative will be overseen by trusted and respected religious and civil society people drawn from across Ghana.

He said Carl Stewart will lead it and that Guyana “will carry the prayers of every faith, the hopes of every heart and the sacred traditions that bind us, whether spoken in the quiet of a church, sung in a temple or whispered in a mosque”.

“We will offer the practical hands of service and provide a safety net of support and compassion that no family affected by this tragedy will slip through,” he said, adding that he has asked Iman Harrison Courtenay of Belize to assist in working out the modalities relating to financial assistance for the survivors and the victims’ families.

Ali said Courtenay brings to this process a wealth of experience as a lawyer, a former minister of foreign affairs and former attorney general, and a former minister of investment and foreign trade of his country.

“I wish to make it clear, this assistance does not constitute compensation for survivors and bereaved families. These measures embody a commitment that every survivor will be supported, every bereaved family will be treated with dignity.

“It is in that spirit that I ask every Guyanese to stand together as one people. Let, therefore, this be our declaration. We are Guyana. We do not abandon our own. We rise from the ashes of sorrow with arms wide open.

“We carry the memory of every soul lost, not as a weight that crushes, but as a light that guides us towards a future. Forged in kindness, unity and love,” Ali said, indicating that Guyana remains “in the shadow of that dark hour”.

“I promised in the early hours of that tragedy that my government will stand with the survivors and the families of the victims, and those still unaccounted for, and that we will do so not for a fleeting moment, not until the headlines fade, but throughout the long, tender journey of healing that stretches far beyond this period of immediate grief,” Ali said in the broadcast.

Over the past two days, no more bodies have been found, leaving at least 30 passengers yet to be accounted for at a time when French military divers say they cannot see inside the wreck.

“We have to feel the wreck and it’s like we are blind. So it’s too dangerous for us to enter into the wreck and because of the many ropes and hammocks, it’s very difficult to see where we are going,” a French soldier said in an almost three-minute video on President Ali’s Facebook page.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Mark Phillips said 30 bodies were unaccounted for, the confirmed death toll was 73 and 76 were rescued. The authorities believe that there were more than 116 passengers and 17 crew on board the vessel when it sank after being hit by a wave on July 18 as it made its way from Georgetown to Port Kaituma, a small village within the Barima-Waini administrative region of the country.

They believe that 179 passengers were on board the 87-year-old vessel when the tragedy occurred.

In his address, President Ali said that Guyanese have always been a people who understand that grief is not a solitary road.

“It is a path we walk together, shoulder to shoulder. And let no one mistake this for compensation. Grief cannot be balanced by any ledger. This is support born out of the refusal to let anyone walk their sorrow alone.

“This is solidarity, that unbreakable thread that binds us one to another in our common humanity. We are a people who, when darkness descends, light lamps for one another. We are the descendants of ancestors who knew suffering and still chose solidarity, who understood that to lift another is to lift oneself.”

Ali said that the values of the country are etched in Guyana’s motto of one people, one nation, one destiny “bound by the unshakeable belief that every life is precious, every loss is shared and every survivor desires a nation that remembers”.