Cassandra attacked by pirates in Orinoco - passengers stranded on rocky isle Stabroek News December 12, 1999 Pirates attacked a boat ferrying some 30 Guyanese from Venezuela to the Essequibo coast on December 3, forcing the occupants to spend a night on a rocky island in the Orinoco river. According to reports, the vessel Cassandra left San Felix en route to Guyana at 3:00 pm On December 3. However, two hours into the journey a boat with seven heavily armed, masked men came alongside the vessel. Sybil Ali, who was coming to Guyana for a wedding, said that she was sitting at the bow of the boat, when she noticed the pirate ship speeding towards the Cassandra firing shots. The pirates jumped onto the vessel and started to strip the passengers of their valuables. Ali said that one man put a gun to her head and searched her body before relieving her of US$100. Another passenger, Bobby Bhola was relieved of some US$300 and $158,000 worth of articles. The pirates had by then steered the Cassandra to a nearby rocky island where they forced the passengers to disembark and frisked them methodically, removing all their jewellery and money. Then they left the passengers stranded on the island to spend the night under the stars. According to Ali, early the next morning the passengers started to search the island for inhabitants and came across a tribe of Spanish Amerindians who fed them. The tribe went in search of the hijacked boat, which was shortly discovered stripped of all the passengers' belongings including television sets, cameras and other valuables. Also removed were two 75hp Yamaha engines and a 48hp outboard motor. The captain borrowed a small engine from the Amerindians , Ali related, and proceeded to a larger inhabited village where the passengers stayed until last Sunday night when he was able to borrow three bigger engines. The Cassandra eventually limped into Cullen on the Essequibo coast last Tuesday. A © page from: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples