New York City's Guyanese community gathered in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, on Friday night for a vigil to mourn the victims of a ferry disaster off the coast of Guyana that killed at least 72 people. The gathering brought together a grieving community that is the largest Guyanese population anywhere outside of Guyana itself.
The ferry capsized in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, a sudden tragedy that has reverberated thousands of miles away in New York. For a diaspora with deep and constant ties to the homeland, the sheer scale of the loss has been difficult to absorb in the days that followed.
The disaster has devastated many across the city's large Guyanese community, where the pain has been felt far beyond the immediate families of those who died. Mourners at the vigil described a grief so heavy that even those with no direct relation to the victims found themselves shaken by it.
This is something that I cannot quite explain, but the pain is so real that you don't even have to be a relative to feel this amount of pain, one attendee said. The words captured the collective sense of loss that drew people out to stand together in mourning on Friday night.
For many at the gathering, the vigil was also a way to send a message of solidarity back home. We want them to know that here in New York and in the international community, we are grieving with them, another mourner said, offering heartfelt condolences to people back in Guyana.
Beyond the mourning, the community has moved quickly to help. Those who gathered are raising money to send to the families of the victims, turning their grief into a practical effort to support the relatives left behind by the disaster as they face the days and weeks ahead.
Back in Guyana, the tragedy has also stirred anger, with some blaming the Guyanese government for the disaster. The ferry that went down was 87 years old, and three people have since been detained as part of a criminal investigation, including the captain, who was among those rescued.