There's no alternative road route and those who have to use the main road that runs through the violence-prone village are at the mercy of gangs of attackers lying in wait or pretending to be passengers or using other ruses to get on board the vehicles.

Minibuses that ferry passengers along the coast are among vehicles that have increasingly come under robbery attack in recent days.

On Saturday night, an off-duty Police Sergeant travelling in a mini-bus that was attacked by bandits in Buxton, died after he was shot by one of the attackers. The conductor of the bus also died yesterday morning, Police reported.

Joint Forces patrols have been deployed on that stretch of road passing through Buxton for about nine months now to provide a `safe corridor' for those travelling through the troubled area.

While the presence of the Army and Police patrols is no doubt doing much to deter more attacks, it is clear from the recent sad events that commuters and others are not safe on the stretch of road and more proactive tactics have to be employed to secure and make the thoroughfare safe for all travellers.

In a stark reminder of the grim reality of the gauntlet innocent and law-abiding citizens run when travelling through Buxton, a West Berbice motorist last week recounted how his vehicle was mobbed and he and two passengers robbed of cash and jewellery on the public road at Buxton.

The businessman, 29, said the attack took place around 18:00 hrs. Several other robbery attacks were reported and victims said some vehicles were damaged.

The robbery attacks took place after the funeral in the area of one of two men who recently died in a shootout with Police at Ogle, also on the East Coast Demerara. The businessman said he was driving east along the highway on his way home to Berbice from Georgetown when in the vicinity of Annandale, he had to slow his vehicle to a crawl because of a traffic jam ahead.

He said that five young men were standing at the side of the road and one of them with an open top `donation type' box, approached his vehicle and demanded money for `safe passage' through Buxton. He said he and the two passengers gave them $100 each and drove on.

That was not the end - as he was about to leave Buxton, the businessman said he encountered a crowd of about 100 people milling all over the road - a situation which forced him to slow down and stop. He said that a man in the crowd, who also had a `donation type' box in his hands, immediately approached the car, pushed his hand through the open window, turned off the ignition and demanded money. The crowd had in the meanwhile surrounded the car and persons, including females, also pushed their hands into the vehicle and yelled for money, he said.

Out of fear for their lives, he and the two others promptly handed over all the money and jewellery they had before they were allowed to leave.

And then in a new twist, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) reported that a group of residents from Friendship, which is next to Buxton, aided the escape of five armed bandits, one of whom was wounded in the arm by an Army patrol, after a robbery attack on a minibus in the village. The Army said the patrol had confronted five men armed with AK-47 rifles, in the process of robbing the occupants of a minibus at the junction of the East Coast Public Road and Brushe Dam.

The bandits fired on the patrol before fleeing south along Friendship Middle Walk in the direction of the railway embankment, while the minibus sped towards the city, the Army said. It reported that members of the patrol responded with fire and pursued the bandits, wounding one in the arm.

The men, however, managed to escape after a group of villagers placed themselves in the line of fire between the bandits and the soldiers, the Army said.