JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The grand­fa­ther of 23-month-old Aki­ni Kafi, who was killed along with his fa­ther and fam­i­ly friend in a triple shoot­ing in Bel­mont, says on­ly di­vine in­ter­ven­tion can help Trinidad and To­ba­go over­come its crime sit­u­a­tion.

Aki­ni was de­clared dead on ar­rival at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, af­ter he was tak­en there with his moth­er, An­to­nia Cain-Kafi, who was al­so shot when gun­men opened fire on the ve­hi­cle they were trav­el­ling in along Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road.

Cain-Kafi was on her way to drop her child off at a day­care on May 7 when the at­tack oc­curred. Her hus­band, Aquiyl Kafi and his friend, An­tho­ny Wil­son, were al­so killed in the shoot­ing.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Wednes­day, mo­ments be­fore vis­it­ing his daugh­ter, Philmore Cain said on­ly God could ad­dress crimes like the one that dev­as­tat­ed his fam­i­ly.

“Well, this has been go­ing on for years. We all know this. Not to­day, that didn’t start to­day, that didn’t start yes­ter­day. This has been go­ing on for years. And we don’t know. God alone knows. But I just say God is good all the time and some­day to come, God will re­lease us. You see this kind of pain and sor­row? God will re­lease us.”

Cain said fu­ner­al arrange­ments for his grand­son and son-in-law will be made once his daugh­ter is dis­charged from hos­pi­tal.

He said she re­mains “a lit­tle crit­i­cal” af­ter her lungs were pierced by gun­fire.

“She has to be there be­cause it was her son and her hus­band. We can’t do noth­ing and leave her out of it. Be­cause, when she gets dis­charged now and all that gone, and she didn’t play her part, she didn’t see no­body be­fore they go, that could take her toll again, you un­der­stand? So, we’re just try­ing to make sure we’re safe.”

He al­so echoed calls by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, who last Sat­ur­day urged rel­a­tives of crim­i­nals to sur­ren­der them in­stead of har­bour­ing them.

Cain said a uni­fied na­tion­al ef­fort is need­ed to prop­er­ly con­front crime, warn­ing that the sit­u­a­tion will on­ly wors­en with­out col­lec­tive ac­tion.

“Some­times a man doesn’t feel it, and when it hap­pens to some­body, they turn their back, and they say, ‘Well, here’s what’s go­ing on, that’s not my child.’ Un­til it knocks on your door, that’s when every­body does know, ‘hey, this thing’s se­ri­ous.’ But we have to pray and pray for these young men to think about life. And once you think about life, you will not take a life be­cause every­body’s life is worth some­thing.”

Rel­a­tives of Wil­son, who po­lice sus­pect was the in­tend­ed tar­get of the gun­men, have yet to fi­nalise fu­ner­al arrange­ments.