Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The fran­tic search for a miss­ing tod­dler in To­ba­go turned in­to frus­tra­tion and anger yes­ter­day as ten­sions flared.

Hours af­ter lit­tle An­ge­lo To­bias went miss­ing from his Good­wood home, emo­tions were as tu­mul­tuous as the sea where a body, be­lieved to be the two-year-old’s, was briefly spot­ted yes­ter­day morn­ing around 6.30 at the near­by Good­wood Beach.

How­ev­er, be­fore a re­cov­ery was made, the body slipped be­low the chop­py wa­ter and was not seen again.

A fe­male rel­a­tive of lit­tle An­ge­lo, who went miss­ing from his home around 7.30 pm on Mon­day night, had to be held back as she ex­pressed out­rage over an­oth­er vil­lager’s com­ments to the me­dia. She lat­er charged at the woman, ex­chang­ing blows be­fore she was re­strained by rel­a­tives.

The mood had been ex­treme­ly drea­ry pri­or to the scuf­fle as an emo­tion­al Shan­non Miller, the boyfriend of An­ge­lo’s moth­er, Khal­i­fa To­bias, was seen pac­ing around with tears in his eyes. He told Guardian Me­dia he was deeply hurt by what some vil­lagers had been mut­ter­ing.

He in­sist­ed the fam­i­ly would nev­er leave An­ge­lo at home alone.

The at­mos­phere was in con­trast to the pre­ced­ing night, when vil­lagers came to­geth­er to search for An­ge­lo af­ter his moth­er and her boyfriend re­alised he could not be found and raised an alarm.

A vil­lager, who did not want to be named, said that when he found out the child was miss­ing, he im­me­di­ate­ly went to help. He said that with the as­sis­tance of po­lice who ar­rived lat­er, they combed the area in the dark­ness un­til mid­night.

“I have chil­dren, too, so I come out. I feel so hurt and up to now I still hurt,” he said.

He said he woke up yes­ter­day morn­ing and re­sumed search­ing af­ter tend­ing to his an­i­mals.

“We search all in the sea, all in the grape (sea grapes tree), the same sur­round­ings. All up to now, we come up emp­ty-hand­ed,” he said.

An­oth­er vil­lager, Wendy Williams, said she on­ly heard about the sit­u­a­tion when some­one called her yes­ter­day morn­ing. She said she came to the beach around 8 am to add an­oth­er pair of eyes to scout the wa­ter.

“I was re­al sad when I heard the news, be­cause I have chil­dren too,” she said.

Ack­el Franklyn, As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, vis­it­ed Good­wood yes­ter­day and briefly spoke to the fam­i­ly to ex­press his sol­i­dar­i­ty.

“The en­tire vil­lage of Good­wood has de­scend­ed in­to a som­bre state with this loss.”

Franklyn said the divers, who ar­rived around 11 am to as­sist, were try­ing their best even with the chop­py sea and large amount of sar­gas­sum in the wa­ter.

An ag­i­tat­ed Ron­nie Bastal­do, who gath­ers pacro (ma­rine mol­luscs) from the Good­wood shore­line to sell, urged vil­lagers not to “play a blame game.”

He added, “As a vil­lager, I feel very hurt. We could fight each oth­er, but at the end of the day, we care about the chil­dren and them...We need to sup­port the par­ents.

“We just hop­ing Jah give we a bligh and grant mer­cy. This is a child.”

Wendy DesVi­gnes, pres­i­dent of the Good­wood Vil­lage Coun­cil, said she was not pleased with the re­sponse of the au­thor­i­ties.

“The vil­lagers are feel­ing very dis­grun­tled. The Coast Guard came around and they eh even en­ter the wa­ter. They had to bring pri­vate divers. They say­ing they have no equip­ment,” she claimed.

Des Vi­gnes claimed a vil­lager who saw the body want­ed to re­trieve it, but was told not to go by the po­lice.

Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat, head of Hunters Search and Res­cue, told Guardian Me­dia his team would be join­ing the search to­day.

Au­thor­i­ty: Chil­dren re­quire ac­tive su­per­vi­sion

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty yes­ter­day en­cour­aged par­ents and guardians to be vig­i­lant and warned that chil­dren should nev­er be left un­at­tend­ed.

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to An­ge­lo’s fam­i­ly, the au­thor­i­ty said par­ents and guardians play a crit­i­cal role in en­sur­ing the safe­ty and well-be­ing of chil­dren, from ba­bies to teenagers.

It said, “Young chil­dren should nev­er be left un­at­tend­ed and re­quire close, ac­tive su­per­vi­sion at home, in pub­lic spaces, and around pos­si­ble haz­ards.

The au­thor­i­ty said guardians must mon­i­tor the ac­tiv­i­ties of chil­dren as they get old­er.

“Con­sis­tent su­per­vi­sion, age-ap­pro­pri­ate guid­ance, and ac­tive in­volve­ment are es­sen­tial in help­ing to pro­tect chil­dren from harm and en­sur­ing their over­all well-be­ing.”

It said re­ports of ne­glect con­tin­ue to be the high­est re­port­ed type of abuse, fol­lowed by sex­u­al abuse, phys­i­cal abuse and emo­tion­al abuse.