Thirty-nine-year-old Fizal Khan, a fisherman and father of two of Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara (WCD), was last Wednesday beaten, bound, and thrown overboard by his crew members while on a boat in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Mahaica, East Coast Demerara. He was, however, rescued by members of the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard Division who were in the area.
In an interview with Guyana Times on Wednesday, Khan’s sister Elan Jacobus said she was in Bartica, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) on Thursday last when she received the news that her brother has been hospitalised. She said she travelled to Georgetown and was informed by her brother that he was beaten, bound, and thrown overboard by the captain and two other crew men on a boat which had gone out to sea for fishing.
The injuries Fizal Khan sustained after he was beaten by his crew members and thrown overboard
The woman said Khan had left on Wednesday morning to go work on the boat, on which he had been working for the past four months. Shortly after, Khan began feeling unwell and requested that the captain take him back to shore. She said, “He told me that they were supposed to leave on Tuesday, but they didn’t get to go until Wednesday. He said he told them he ain’t feeling well to go, and want to go in back. But he did collect $15,000 advance from them.”
She said her brother told her the captain informed him he was not turning the vessel around, and that he had already collected an advance for the trip.
“He said he turn and tell them, ‘Man, I really not feeling good,’ and he kept insisting that he want to go back. This is like his eighth trip with them, and he said they weren’t that far out. When he insisted, the captain get vex, and one of the crew members, who is family to the captain, took out a steel and hit him in his head. He said he fell down,” the woman related.
She added said at the time her brother was asking to return home, he was making roti in the kitchen of the boat, as it was his turn to cook. After he was hit to the head, he passed out, but woke up and ran to the kitchen for shelter.
“After he run in the kitchen, they run behind him, this is the captain and two others. They started beating him, and then they tied him up. He said he kept falling down because he couldn’t take the licks anymore,” she related.
“They tie his throat, his two hands…while they were doing that, another boat was probably passing and see and called in the Coast Guards…they throw him over in the water. When the Coast Guards reached, they found him tied up and took him to Georgetown Hospital, where he was hospitalised,” she explained.
As a result of the beating, Khan’s sister said, he sustained a broken jaw and nose, along with other injuries. “Right now he is bleeding through his ears, mouth, and nose, (and) he can’t walk or eat. He is just crying out for pain. He is also now behaving delusional and talking out of his head. He keeps screaming, ‘They gonna kill me! They gonna kill me!” the woman said after visiting her brother at the hospital.
Khan has since been transferred to the West Demerara Regional Hospital.
Jacobus said a report was made to the Police after the incident, and the three suspects were arrested but were later released.
“When I went to the Police, they told me that the transfer is to Mahaica, because it happened in the Mahaica area…they told me that the people them (the suspects) will come back on Monday, but they never showed up. When contact was made with the Police station in Mahaica, they said no report was there, and nothing ever came through to them, and they told us that they sent it through to Mahaica. Now, tomorrow (Thursday) we have to go to Mahaica to make a report,” the distraught sister said.
She added that she reached out to the media since the Police were frustrating the family. She related that her family wants justice for Khan, adding that had the Coast Guards not arrived, her brother might have lost his life.
Up to press time on Wednesday, there has been no media release from the Police on the incident.
