RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Yet an­oth­er tod­dler has drowned in a fam­i­ly pool while in the care of rel­a­tives.

On Thurs­day, two-year-old Safoorah Muhammed drowned af­ter she fell in­to a pool at Munroe Road, Cunu­pia.

Ba­by Safoorah lived with her moth­er An­gela and three broth­ers at Pas­cal Road, Pi­paro.

How­ev­er, a neigh­bour who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said An­gela took her chil­dren to spend time at their grand­fa­ther’s home in Cunu­pia two weeks ago. 

Po­lice said around 4.30 pm on Thurs­day, a rel­a­tive, Sad­diq Muhammed, left Safoorah play­ing with her cousins and went away. But when he re­turned five min­utes lat­er, he did not see the child.

Fam­i­ly mem­bers be­gan search­ing the house and lat­er found the ba­by float­ing in the pool. Sad­diq quick­ly pulled her out of the wa­ter and be­gan do­ing CPR but Safoorah re­mained un­re­spon­sive. She was rushed to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty where she was pro­nounced dead.

An­oth­er neigh­bour who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty yes­ter­day said An­gela’s broth­er-in-law in­formed them about the death yes­ter­day morn­ing.

“It so sad. She is a re­al­ly nice lit­tle girl. Very qui­et,” the neigh­bour said.

An­oth­er neigh­bour ex­plained that the fu­ner­al took place yes­ter­day un­der Mus­lim rites.

WP/Sgt Dick­son of the Ch­agua­nas po­lice is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

 This is the sec­ond child to have drowned in as many months.

On Au­gust 4, four-year-old Shi­va Canya, of Pasea Vil­lage, Tu­na­puna, was at the home of his pa­ter­nal grand­moth­er Chooni Sama­roo, 67, of 222 Ridge Road, San Pe­dro Vil­lage, Poole, when tragedy struck.

Sama­roo told po­lice she was watch­ing Canya when with­out her notic­ing, he slipped away. When she re­alised he was miss­ing, she fran­ti­cal­ly start­ed to check around the house for him. She called out to him but he did not an­swer. She then called her son Ajay, 24, who was work­ing near­by at the home of their next-door neigh­bour Lochan Heer­alal.

Ajay quick­ly stopped his work and be­gan look­ing for his son. Mo­ments lat­er he saw the tod­dler’s body float­ing in Heer­alal’s swim­ming pool. Ajay picked up the un­con­scious child and quick­ly rushed him to the Rio Claro Health fa­cil­i­ty where he was pro­nounced dead.