KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“I am sor­ry for every­thing I did, girl. I am sor­ry for all I put you through,” a dev­as­tat­ed Bhag­wan­daye Ramharack cried, gaz­ing at her daugh­ter Mari­ah Seenath’s body ly­ing in a cof­fin yes­ter­day. “I wish you could come back, girl,” she sobbed. “I wish you could come back to me.”

De­spite the ra­di­ant sun­shine over Friend­ship Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, the mood was som­bre as fam­i­ly, friends, vil­lagers, and school­mates gath­ered for Mari­ah’s farewell. The ser­vice be­gan at her grand­moth­er’s home, with loved ones plac­ing flow­ers and a foot­ball in the cof­fin, sym­bols of the life she loved. Here, Ramharack ex­pressed re­gret for not ful­fill­ing her daugh­ter’s wish­es.

“You are an an­gel, girl. You had just start­ed to live. You did not get to do any­thing, Mari­ah,” she said. “That is my child. Why did they do that to my child?”

Her fa­ther, Mar­lon Seenath, wept as he leaned over the cof­fin and kissed her fore­head, his silent grief echo­ing through the crowd.

At the St John’s Open Bible Church, her foot­ball team­mates ar­rived in uni­form, bear­ing a ban­ner with her im­age, trans­form­ing the ser­vice in­to a field of re­mem­brance. Mari­ah’s coach, Lin­da Bram­ble-Thomp­son, de­scribed her as a bright spark at San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary, a re­spect­ful, hum­ble stu­dent who nev­er showed rude­ness to teach­ers or peers.

Her team­mates ho­n­oured her mem­o­ry with a dis­play of their foot­ball skills, turn­ing grief in­to trib­ute through the sport she loved. Read­ing the eu­lo­gy, her cousins Sha­nia Boopraj and Reynelle Teelucks­ingh re­mem­bered Mari­ah as a gift in their lives. They re­called mak­ing mud­cakes to­geth­er, play­ing foot­ball, and shar­ing laugh­ter, mo­ments that now live on as cher­ished mem­o­ries.

Born in 2011 and buried in 2025, Mari­ah was re­mem­bered not on­ly as a foot­baller and stu­dent, but as a daugh­ter who nev­er got to fin­ish Form Three or chase her new­ly voiced dreams. She was found dead on Sep­tem­ber 20 in bush­es near the Friend­ship Vil­lage Recre­ation Ground, hours af­ter leav­ing her grand­moth­er’s home to walk to her fa­ther’s house, a route she of­ten took with sib­lings.

An au­top­sy con­firmed blunt force trau­ma to the head as the cause of death, with signs of stran­gu­la­tion, bruis­es, and a bro­ken nose.

Speak­ing from the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York on Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called Mari­ah’s death “a tragedy for all of us … par­tic­u­lar­ly more trag­ic when it is a child”. She pledged to strength­en the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and work more close­ly with fam­i­lies to pre­vent vi­o­lence and pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble youth.

Speak­ing at the fu­ner­al, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs David Nakhid shared that he re­ceived a 4.30 am call from Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who asked him to rep­re­sent Gov­ern­ment with dig­ni­ty. Re­flect­ing on the weight of Mari­ah’s death, Nakhid said no one can pre­pare for the loss of a life so full of promise. While some may call her pass­ing un­planned, he re­mind­ed mourn­ers that the Cre­ator plans all things.

He urged fam­i­lies to let Mari­ah’s short life be­come a sym­bol, a lega­cy that prompts re­flec­tion on how we cher­ish our daugh­ters, sis­ters, and chil­dren.

“I my­self have a daugh­ter, and I can on­ly imag­ine the loss that some of you feel right now. Did I tell my daugh­ter enough that I love her? Did I hug her enough? Did I em­brace her dreams? Did I sup­port her enough? When she went to play foot­ball, Mari­ah, did I go to see her play? By all ac­counts, she was a war­rior in life. By all ac­counts, she was a war­rior in death,” Nakhid said.

He added that so­ci­ety must seek jus­tice for Mari­ah, not re­venge.

Re­count­ing a vis­it to Colom­bia, Rev Rod­ney Singh de­scribed the mar­vel of a flower field and likened Mari­ah to “one of those hand­picked, beau­ti­ful flow­ers”.

“God picked her from the midst of many beau­ti­ful ros­es,” he said, fram­ing her death not as aban­don­ment, but as sa­cred se­lec­tion.

He quot­ed Isa­iah 57:1 from the King James Ver­sion:

“The right­eous per­isheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and mer­ci­ful men are tak­en away, none con­sid­er­ing that the right­eous is tak­en away from the evil to come.”

Singh ac­knowl­edged that many strug­gle to un­der­stand why good peo­ple are tak­en so soon, but re­mind­ed mourn­ers that Chris­tians be­lieve in a God who is sov­er­eign and just. “It is not about re­venge,” he said, “but we be­lieve in a God of jus­tice.” He ref­er­enced Je­re­mi­ah 19, not­ing that the spilling of chil­dren’s blood is de­scribed in scrip­ture as a sin.