An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

“Why her? Why us? Why this?”

These were the ques­tions posed by the tear­ful rel­a­tives of a 12-year-old girl who was shot by a gun­man as he aimed at her fa­ther on Wednes­day night in Bagatelle.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on the con­di­tion of strict anonymi­ty, the rel­a­tives said fol­low­ing the har­row­ing or­deal, “We are hold­ing on.”

How­ev­er, they said the young vic­tim was fac­ing an up­hill bat­tle as she re­mained in a sta­ble but crit­i­cal con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal.

While her progress was de­scribed as pos­i­tive but slow yes­ter­day, med­ical per­son­nel warned that the Stan­dard Five pupil could be fac­ing pos­si­ble paral­y­sis as the two bul­lets had punc­tured her lungs and shat­tered ma­jor in­ter­nal bones be­fore be­ing lodged near the spinal cord.

The fam­i­ly is hope­ful the young girl, who loves mu­sic and dance, will once again be able to in­dulge in her favourite hob­bies.

But a rel­a­tive said while the child is now con­scious and co­her­ent, “She has dam­aged lungs.

“She has a long way to go as she has a lot of bro­ken bones. She sus­tained a lot of in­juries. The ma­jor things dam­aged in­clud­ed both lungs and spine,” the rel­a­tive ex­plained.

The 12-year-old girl now faces sev­er­al surg­eries.

“It is a long road ahead of us now. She is not get­ting to go to school, she is not get­ting her nor­mal ther­a­py, she is not get­ting dance class, she is not get­ting swim­ming class­es be­cause of a sense­less act.

“There is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that she may not even be able to walk again,” one rel­a­tive said.

They lament­ed that the 12-year-old was not even used to walk­ing the streets of Bagatelle and would usu­al­ly be in­side the fam­i­ly house keep­ing her­self busy with ac­tiv­i­ties.

“She is not a child that would so­cialise with much peo­ple. She usu­al­ly stays to her­self, even at home. She would be on her de­vice and do her own stuff.”

The girl’s loved ones ex­pressed shock over the in­ci­dent as the fam­i­ly had lived in the area for the past 17 years and had nev­er been in­volved in any un­to­ward in­ci­dents.

“We are try­ing our best to hold it to­geth­er for her and each oth­er be­cause we don’t want her to know we are emo­tion­al­ly bro­ken and stressed.

“We want her to see we are hap­py and that we are hold­ing on for her, so we are try­ing our best.”

Rel­a­tives said the fam­i­ly has not been able to sleep since the shoot­ing in­ci­dent.

“It was ex­treme­ly shock­ing and very sur­pris­ing.

“It is just con­fus­ing as to why...that is what we want to know...why?” they asked.

Po­lice said the fam­i­ly was not known to be in­volved in any il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties or had been in any al­ter­ca­tion with any­one from the com­mu­ni­ty, or af­fil­i­at­ed with any gangs.

That’s why rel­a­tives said they nev­er thought crime would come their way.

“We al­ways hear­ing about chil­dren be­ing shot or killed,” one fam­i­ly mem­ber said.

Rel­a­tives said yes­ter­day, that while the child was ask­ing to go home, they no longer con­sid­er Bagatelle a place to live com­fort­ably.

“She should not be tak­en back to the lo­ca­tion as it would be too trau­mat­ic for her,” a rel­a­tive said.

They lament­ed the sense of se­cu­ri­ty and com­fort had been tak­en away from all of them.

Mean­while, rel­a­tives com­mend­ed the po­lice for as­sist­ing the fa­ther and the in­jured girl in a time­ly man­ner. When it comes to jus­tice they are leav­ing it in God’s hands.

“Right now we just want to see her come out of the hos­pi­tal and do bet­ter. There is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that she may not even be able to walk again...that is not a sure­ty for us right now,” a rel­a­tive cried.