NIEUW NICKERIE--A Surinamese man was shot and killed on the Corantyne river Saturday night, when his boat was fired at from the Guyana coast. One Guyanese man was admitted to a hospital with gunshot wounds and one was still missing on Sunday.

Dead is Amit Jhinoe, who had picked up passengers from Guyana with his boat. They were travelling illegally "back track" back to Suriname, when someone opened fire at the vessel.

The passengers jumped overboard, but Jhinoe was hit fatally by multiple bullets. One of the passengers was also hit. Police say before he died, Jhinoe had been able to call his brother. By the time he got there though, his brother had passed away. The wounded Guyanese passenger was taken to a hospital in Nieuw Nickerie, the city on the Suriname side of the border between Guyana and Suriname. The other Guyanese man who jumped overboard was still missing on Sunday; the two other men, who were on the boat with Jhinoe, were found on a small island upstream in the Corantyne River.

Back track is a heavily used, illegal route between Suriname and Guyana. Though travel and trade on this track is tolerated, it is not allowed for boats to be on the river after 7:00pm. Police remained tight-lipped on the incident, on Sunday. "It's a sensitive issue and we're still investigating, together with the Guyanese authorities," Police Chief Humphrey Tjin Liep Sjie reacted, referring to the incident as a "serious one."