An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­nal­isa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The one-year-old Venezue­lan boy who was struck by stray bul­lets on Mon­day night in El So­cor­ro, San Juan, re­mained hos­pi­talised in a sta­ble con­di­tion yes­ter­day.

Jose Nunez En­rique was said to be “good” and rel­a­tives were hope­ful he will be re­leased next week from the Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal in Mt Hope.

How­ev­er, a rel­a­tive said the child’s fa­ther was wor­ried and trau­ma­tised af­ter the in­ci­dent.

Jose was shot once in each thigh around 9.45 pm, as he played in the walk­way of his fam­i­ly’s rent­ed apart­ment at Lootoo Street, El So­cor­ro.

The child had re­port­ed­ly been play­ing with two oth­ers when a gun­man came run­ning from the di­rec­tion of the Mus­lim Ceme­tery in El So­cor­ro, fir­ing his weapon in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for an up­date, a fe­male rel­a­tive of the one-year-old boy con­firmed he was sta­ble and rest­ing.

She re­vealed that while the in­fant was bare­ly eat­ing and re­mained fussy and in pain, he was in good spir­its, as his moth­er had been at his side through­out.

The rel­a­tive al­so com­mend­ed the med­ical staff for en­sur­ing lit­tle Jose was com­fort­able and tak­en care of.

On Tues­day, the child’s fa­ther, Luis En­rique, said while he was scared as a re­sult of the crime sit­u­a­tion, re­turn­ing to Venezuela was not an op­tion, as they had come to Trinidad for a bet­ter life.

Asked if the fam­i­ly was re­con­sid­er­ing its de­ci­sion not to leave this coun­try fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, Jose’s rel­a­tive said his fa­ther was, “very wor­ried about the child and not do­ing well.”

She added, “They have no plans to leave the coun­try as they came to T&T for a bet­ter life.

“He knows it wasn’t any­thing in­ten­tion­al against them as they nev­er did any­thing wrong, and the ba­by was in­no­cent.”