Guyana appointed five international experts to investigate the June 18 capsizing of the state ferry MV Barima; the panel brings legal, naval-architecture and maritime experience to an inquiry whose mandate includes the manifest, overcrowding, cargo, lifesaving equipment, maintenance, navigation and emergency response. [1]

That architecture is a completed institutional step, not a finding: AP reports that authorities believe 179 people were aboard, 73 bodies were recovered and 76 people were rescued, while three people, including the captain, had been arrested. [1]

The figures expose the first task without answering it: subtracting the recovered bodies and rescued people from the believed total leaves an arithmetic remainder, but the source does not label that remainder as missing, and only a reconciled manifest can establish who was aboard and how each person should be counted.

The exact X search met a challenge page, leaving local confidence and blame unmeasured; AP's disaster-to-commission frame is more useful so long as appointment is kept separate from independence, evidence custody, public hearings, a report, prosecutions and safety reform; the panel can now ask inspectable questions about an 87-year-old ferry, but accountability begins when it preserves evidence and publishes answers in full and in public, not merely because five chairs have been filled.

-- LUCIA VEGA, Sao Paulo