Jesse Ramdeo

Thou­sands across the coun­try and in the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty of Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin, were tossed in­to grief yes­ter­day, af­ter two-year-old Ky­mani Fran­cis was found dead in the Guapo riv­er a day af­ter he went miss­ing.

The tod­dler was found by a mem­ber of a search and res­cue group from the vil­lage short­ly be­fore 11 am. Guardian Me­dia was told by of­fi­cials that Ky­mani had blood in his nose when he was found.

Res­cue teams had re­sumed their search for the boy from be­fore 5 am, af­ter the ef­forts in­volv­ing hun­dreds of sol­diers, po­lice, hunters and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers on Mon­day failed to find him.

The search end­ed with the dis­cov­ery of his body, face down in the wa­ter, clad on­ly in the pam­per he was wear­ing when he wan­dered from his house at 10.40 on Mon­day morn­ing.

He was dis­cov­ered in an area that was searched the day be­fore.

In the di­rec­tion the boy walked while head­ing to­wards a bushy area in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty the day be­fore, he would have passed two wood­en hous­es just off the road­way from the home he shared with his fam­i­ly.

A neigh­bour, who claimed she had ob­served Ky­mani veer­ing away from his home, said she con­tact­ed the po­lice while pur­su­ing the boy. How­ev­er, she ex­plained that he was so far ahead of her that she lost sight of him af­ter he turned a cor­ner at the end of the street.

Zoizoi Lewis, who said she saw Kymani Francis walking on the road, is escorted by a police officer.

RISHI RAGOONATH

How did Ky­mani reach the riv­er?

The bare­foot­ed tod­dler would have had to walk for near­ly a mile from his home be­neath the swel­ter­ing heat on an oil sand road and then ven­ture off in­to a grassy track with stones and de­bris to reach where his body was found.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are try­ing to de­ter­mine how he did all of this on his own.

Head of the search par­ty Hard Ground Gets Soft, Ren Gopiesingh, al­so said it was un­be­liev­able the tod­dler made the jour­ney un­der the harsh con­di­tions.

“The body was dis­cov­ered close to the flood­gate and for a tod­dler, that walk can­not be less than 20 min­utes. For a ba­by to make that walk, it re­al­ly hard. I made that walk sev­er­al times my­self and it was not easy,” he said.

Gopiesingh said the area of the riv­er where the boy’s body was found was searched sev­er­al times by mem­bers of his group and oth­ers on Mon­day.

“The Coast Guard, life guards, we and all were here. We were in the wa­ter, we did checks and searched that area and to know that was where the body was found, it re­al­ly hard. I, as a fa­ther, it hard. As a par­ent los­ing your child is hard.”

Mon­day’s search ex­er­cis­es went be­yond 11 pm and vol­un­teers and vil­lagers be­gan search­ing be­fore 5 am yes­ter­day, pri­or to of­fi­cial search teams re­sum­ing their work.

Police and Army leave the area where two-year-old Kymani Francis’s body was found in the Guapo River, Point Fortin, yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Com­mu­ni­ty failed tod­dler

As mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty tried to piece to­geth­er what hap­pened, many ex­pressed out­rage over the cir­cum­stances that pre­ced­ed his death.

Many ques­tioned the pres­ence of the boy’s par­ents, who were at home when he dis­ap­peared and al­so the role of the fe­male neigh­bour who said she pur­sued and con­tact­ed the po­lice when she saw the tod­dler wan­der­ing off.

The neigh­bour has since come un­der heavy crit­i­cism for not do­ing more to re­cov­er Ky­mani, de­spite her claims that she at­tempt­ed to fol­low the boy.

In an in­ter­view post­ed on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, she said, “I just kept go­ing, I was call­ing boy, I was look­ing all over, there’s a riv­er right there. I checked both sides of the riv­er, when I reached I couldn’t find him. I kept go­ing.”

Po­lice es­cort­ed the woman to the place where the boy’s body was found yes­ter­day.

Tem­pers flared as vil­lagers gath­ered out­side her home, as they in­sist­ed she could have done more.

“So you, be­cause the moth­er ain’t come out, you can’t come out and bring the child for the moth­er...there is a God and he sees and he knows,” one woman said.

Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards said the in­ci­dent had left a cloud of gloom over the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I was look­ing at him there and I was say­ing that could hap­pen to any­body. I’m not go­ing to cast as­per­sions on the fam­i­ly but as a com­mu­ni­ty, we would have failed that young man. The neigh­bour saw him wan­der­ing off, there were some guys cut­ting grass for Her­itage that saw him and you know what, no­body stopped him and that is where we failed.”

May­or Saleema Thomas held back the tears as she lament­ed lit­tle Ky­mani’s trag­ic end.

“What can a lit­tle one do to de­serve such cru­el­ty? So I want to plead with the per­sons out there that our chil­dren are our fu­ture and if we con­tin­ue to cre­ate such harm for our chil­dren there is no fu­ture for us.”

An au­top­sy will be con­duct­ed on the tod­dler to de­ter­mine the cause of death.

Two-year-old Kymani Francis

PM sad­dened by death

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ex­pressed sad­ness over the death of two-year-old Ky­mani Fran­cis.

Dr Row­ley is­sued a brief state­ment on his Face­book page yes­ter­day, say­ing he trusts “that in times like these we com­mit even more than ever, to be our broth­er’s keep­er.”

“A child is dead and this en­tire na­tion is torn to our deep with­in. We all have ques­tions to ask our­selves not the least of which is whether this ten­der life could have been saved,” Dr Row­ley said.

He added: “The vast ma­jor­i­ty of us do not know this child or this fam­i­ly but that does not in­su­late us from the deep dis­turb­ing sor­row that wash­es over our na­tion tonight. This sad end is not what we were pray­ing and hop­ing for even as we strug­gle with a con­stant stream of vi­o­lence, do­mes­tic and oth­er­wise.”

“I, among the many shocked and sad­dened cit­i­zens, ex­tend my deep­est sym­pa­thy to the fam­i­ly and the Pt Fortin com­mu­ni­ty and trust that in times like these we com­mit even more than ever, to be our broth­er’s keep­er as we ex­tend our­selves in sup­port as far as we are able.”

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The rescue team leaves the scene after the body of two-year-old Kymani Francis body was found, in the Guapo River, Techier Village, Point Fortin yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH