RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Two weeks af­ter he drowned in the Or­toire Riv­er, ba­by Al­lon Ram­di­al will fi­nal­ly be laid to rest to­mor­row.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox con­firmed last night that the fu­ner­al will take place in Ma­yaro and her min­istry will be foot­ing all ex­pens­es.

The tod­dler’s body has been re­moved from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James and sent to Boodoo’s fu­ner­al home in Rio Claro. How­ev­er, his cas­ket will be closed dur­ing the ser­vice.

Mean­while, Al­lon’s moth­er Chris­tian­na Ram­di­al, 19, has re­turned to the stock­room at the Ma­yaro Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty where she, her son and hus­band were liv­ing for the past two years, al­though her fam­i­ly has of­fered her lodg­ing.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Cox said the en­tire fam­i­ly has been re­ceiv­ing psy­choso­cial and so­cial sup­port.

“The min­istry fam­i­ly so­cial work­er has been work­ing with her and her en­tire fam­i­ly, her mom and step­fa­ther. We have been walk­ing them through the process,” Cox said.

She re­vealed that nei­ther Al­lon nor his moth­er had birth cer­tifi­cates.

“They met with the As­sis­tant Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al and they should get their birth cer­tifi­cates to­mor­row (to­day),” Cox re­vealed.

She said Ram­di­al has ac­cept­ed the min­istry’s as­sis­tance.

“She has been re­ceiv­ing coun­selling and we will pro­vide all sup­port that is need­ed,” Cox added.

Asked whether any as­sis­tance will be giv­en to Ram­di­al and her com­mon-law hus­band Carl Mur­phy in re­la­tion to hous­ing, Cox said this will fall un­der the purview of the Hous­ing Min­istry.

“You have to be able to pay for hous­ing to qual­i­fy for hous­ing, but our so­cial work­er will make all in­ter­ven­tions,” Cox added.

Mean­while, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray said the re­sults of an au­top­sy done on Al­lon on Tues­day have not been dis­closed. He said the fam­i­ly was still await­ing a death cer­tifi­cate which will show the cause of death. He said he vis­it­ed Ram­di­al twice and of­fered her food sup­port. He said she is still griev­ing for her son and the com­mu­ni­ty has been sup­port­ive of them.

Mean­while, po­lice said they are yet to sub­mit a file on the mat­ter. Of­fi­cers are prob­ing pos­si­ble neg­li­gence. Videos of Al­lon play­ing by him­self at the fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty com­pound have been sent to the po­lice.

Alon was last seen play­ing with crabs on the banks of the riv­er while his moth­er slept around 6 am on De­cem­ber 9. His dis­ap­pear­ance led to a mas­sive man­hunt by the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue team and Coast Guard of­fi­cials. The child’s de­com­pos­ing body was found on De­cem­ber 13 at the mouth of the riv­er, about a kilo­me­tre from where he dis­ap­peared.