The first report was a single paragraph. On the evening of Sunday, June 1, 2025, Starnieuws wrote that a boat had gone down near Tapoekoe and Bamboesi, in the Marowijne district around Albina. Police there told the Surinamese news site that ten people were aboard, nine of them listed as missing, and that three bodies had been recovered.
The numbers moved from there. By Tuesday, the Dutch broadcaster NOS, citing the news agency ANP, said seven people had died on the Marowijne, as the Maroni is called in Suriname. Thirteen people had been aboard, according to that account. All went into the water; six were pulled out alive. Three bodies were found the same day, and the remaining victims were recovered on Monday and Tuesday after a search. NOS added that the cause was still very unclear, though Starnieuws reported the boat capsized suddenly.
A day of national mourning
Suriname declared Tuesday, June 3, a day of national mourning. Flags on public buildings and on ships flew at half-mast, and President Santokhi signed the book of condolence.
What the village captain says
Jona Gunther is captain of the village of Erowarte and chairs the Kalina and Lokono Indigenous association of Lower Marowijne. Speaking to the Suriname Herald, he described the dead as relatives who lived on the French Guiana side of the river and crossed back and forth at weekends. They had come to help arrange matters after the death of a family member.
A thunderstorm had been passing, he said, and the group waited for it to clear before taking a chance on the crossing. The boat was also carrying cargo, and the boatman, in his telling, no longer wanted to keep shuttling across. Gunther said the community had never before lost so many people in one accident in Marowijne.
The rescue was hampered. Albina was dark that evening, he said, and people searched with the flashlights on their phones. There was no phone connection that day, so nobody could call the police directly, and officers from the Surinamese side arrived much later. The bodies were first close to the villages but drifted off in the dark when they could not be retrieved. Gunther said he was grateful for the help of both countries during the search.
Mourning is under way on both banks, in Erowarte and in Paddock in French Guiana. According to the captain, the French authorities took charge of the bodies, and the dead are to be buried at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni. No date had been set.
Sources
- Doden bij bootongeluk in Albina (Starnieuws)
- Dag van nationale rouw in Suriname na dodelijk bootongeluk (NOS / ANP)
- Kapitein Erowarte treurt om verlies zeven levens (Suriname Herald)
Sources
- Portal:Current events/2025 June 1 – Wikipedia
- Nigerian villagers in Sokoto bury bodies after overloaded boat…
