A man re­mains in hos­pi­tal with se­ri­ous fa­cial in­juries, while chil­dren in Carr Trace, Ca­paro, walk bare­foot through thick mud to reach to school dai­ly. Res­i­dents are strand­ed, farm­ers can­not trans­port their goods, and frus­tra­tion is reach­ing a boil­ing point. For the peo­ple of Carr Trace, this is what they de­scribed as a com­mu­ni­ty cri­sis.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, res­i­dents said a bridge, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for com­ple­tion with­in three months, re­mains un­fin­ished, forc­ing them to cross via a nar­row makeshift walk­way. They said the sur­round­ing roads, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the rainy sea­son, have al­so be­come near­ly im­pass­able.

“It’s a ter­ror,” said long­time res­i­dent Dahlim Mo­hamed.

“When it rains, the road turns to mud. Chil­dren have to take off their shoes to walk to school. Their clothes and shoes get ru­ined. It’s re­al­ly hard.”

Ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed fur­ther when res­i­dent Shiv­an Se­bas­t­ian suf­fered se­vere in­juries af­ter falling in­to an un­cov­ered man­hole on the Mamoral/Ca­paro Main Road. Se­bas­t­ian is now un­der­go­ing treat­ment at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mount Hope.

His rel­a­tive, No­orde­vie Sookram, de­scribed the scene: “When I ar­rived, he was sit­ting on a plat­form with his face swollen, both eyes bruised, and blood cov­er­ing his nose. It was ter­ri­ble.”

She said the fam­i­ly had dif­fi­cul­ty com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Se­bas­t­ian due to his in­juries.

“He can bare­ly speak. We had to use sign lan­guage. His face is still swollen.”

Lo­cal farmer Hamil­ton Bovril said the in­fra­struc­ture is­sues are al­so harm­ing liveli­hoods.

“I had to ac­cept what­ev­er price was of­fered be­cause I couldn’t trans­port my goods. A man came, col­lect­ed the pro­duce, and sold it for me.”

The bridge re­con­struc­tion at Carr Trace falls un­der the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, with Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (PSAEL) man­ag­ing the project. Con­struc­tion be­gan on Oc­to­ber 21, 2024, with a Jan­u­ary 21, 2025, com­ple­tion. Cath­marie Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed was award­ed the con­tract.

At­tempts by Guardian Me­dia to con­tact the con­trac­tor were un­suc­cess­ful, and Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Ravi Rati­ram was un­avail­able for com­ment as he is over­seas.