Prime Minister Berates, Attempts to Eject Grieving Sister of Opposition Leader in Parliament Halls

 Prime Minister Berates, Attempts to Eject Grieving Sister of Opposition Leader in Parliament Halls

THE 592 GUARDIAN — ACCOUNTABILITY DESK  |  July, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Phillips raised his voice, pointed a finger, and ordered a young woman to leave a public building on Monday, as families of the MV Barima disaster’s dead confronted the government in the halls of Parliament. The woman was Hadiyyah Mohamed, sister of Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed. The confrontation was captured on video and circulated publicly.

WHAT THE VIDEO SHOWS

The footage — verified by this news media— shows Phillips shouting at Ms. Mohamed at close range, jabbing his finger toward her, and instructing her repeatedly to “get from here” and “move from here.” Mohamed can be heard responding “do not yell at me, sir” multiple times, asserting her right as a private citizen to be present, and asking pointedly whether the Prime Minister’s conduct amounted to that of a “dictatorship.”

Phillips’s own remarks are frequently inaudible on the recording, though his tone and posture — captured clearly on camera — are not in dispute.

Notably, it was Phillips who raised his voice and escalated the physical confrontation, even as he appeared to accuse Ms. Mohamed  of  misconduct by misleading surviving   assembled family members . The irony was not lost on bystanders: a sitting Prime Minister, lecturing grieving citizens on decorum, while shouting and pointing in a public corridor of the nation’s Parliament.

MOHAMED’S ACCOUNT

According to Mohamed’s own account of the encounter, the confrontation began when relatives of three MV Barima victims, guests of  Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed approached his  sister in the halls of Parliament to voice their grief.

A bewildered but very composed Ms. Mohamed

Phillips then inserted himself into that meeting, offering the family condolences and pledging to “correct the mistake.” When Hadiyyah Mohamed pressed him directly — “when?” — Phillips replied “now,” and the exchange escalated. He then turned on her, demanding to know why she was there. Her answer was simple: it is a public building.

That answer is the spine of what happened next. Rather than accept it, Phillips told her to “get from here” — an attempt, in substance, to remove the one person positioned to hear what he was telling a grieving family, in a building that belongs to the public he serves.

Mohamed says his personal security detail then made physical contact with her as they moved to remove her from the area. She says she objected — “don’t touch me, sir” — and that Phillips himself intervened to call off his own security, telling them “no, no, don’t touch her, leave her.” Phillips then walked away mumbling incoherently . 

This news- media  has independently verified the video recording of the public confrontation. Mohamed’s fuller account of what preceded and followed the recorded portion — including the exchange over her right to be present and the sequence of the security contact — is presented here as her own attributed account, not as independently confirmed fact.

AN ATTEMPT TO KEEP A WITNESS OUT OF THE ROOM

What Mohamed describes is not simply rudeness. A Prime Minister who tries to remove a citizen from a public building — specifically the one citizen standing beside a grieving family as he makes them a promise — is not managing decorum.

He is trying to control who hears him. Her refusal to leave was not defiance for its own sake; it was an assertion of the plainest civic fact available to her: the building is public, and so, in that moment, was his conduct in it.

CONTEXT: A DISASTER REDUCED TO A FOOTNOTE

The confrontation took place on the same day Parliament observed a full single minute of silence for the MV Barima disaster, which claimed more than 100 lives. Leaving one burning question,was those 100 souls, only deserving of a mere 60 seconds of the. PPP’s precious time?  The majority of them Indigenous and Amerindian Guyanese, with Indian and African Guyanese also among the dead — before proceeding to pass a $54.9 billion bill. Critics, including Mohamed, have argued that a tragedy of this scale warranted more than symbolic acknowledgment from a government still facing calls to remove Public Works Minister Juan Edghill and Minister within Public Works Deodat Indar over ministerial responsibility for the disaster.

Set against that backdrop, Monday’s confrontation reads less as an isolated lapse in temper than as a demonstration of how this administration treats accountability when it shows up in person. A grieving family sought answers from the country’s second-highest office. What they received, on video, was a raised voice, a pointed finger, and an order to leave.

THE STANDARD A PRIME MINISTER IS HELD TO

Guyana’s Prime Minister is not a private citizen and is not entitled to the latitude of one. Public officials who lose their composure with bereaved constituents — particularly in the immediate aftermath of a mass-casualty disaster their own ministries are implicated in — invite exactly the scrutiny this news-media is applying here.

Whether Phillips’s conduct rises to actionable misconduct is a matter for Guyanese to judge for themselves, now that the footage is public.

What is not in dispute is that the Prime Minister, not the grieving woman he confronted, was the one raising his voice in a public building.

The 592 Guardian has sought comment from the Office of the Prime Minister. This report will be updated with any response.

— The Board