A Le Destin, East Bank Essequibo mother whose 26-year-old son, Mario “Ameen” Bernard has been reported missing after he set off to work in the interior has still not gotten any word on his whereabouts.
Nita Bernard told Stabroek News when contacted yesterday that “the police promised to send out radio messages to stations in the interior and they said they would contact me but I have not heard from them as yet.”
She said she was advised to seek the assistance of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs Ministry.
“I am so confused; I don’t know what to do; where to turn to now for help. All I want is for my son to come home. If he is alive I want him to call me…,” she lamented.
She also said that “I still have hope that my son is still alive but I want to hear his voice. I don’t know how much more I have to do now. I am a poor woman and I do not have money to follow up this matter.”
Mario left on February 3 to work with a mining company and was expected to return home at the end of July. She said yesterday when she contacted the office “someone told me that my son don’t work with them anymore and they are not concerned if he is dead or not. They told me that I said a lot of things in the newspaper…” She was also told that her son only worked with the company for one day.
A colleague who lives at Zeelugt brought out Mario’s bag on March 11 and related another story. The man told her that her son worked for the company for three days and “bruk away from the crew with a set of boys and went somewhere else and left his bag.” The woman said that some of her son’s personal items were missing from the bag.
She said she made a report to the Parika Police Station since then because she suspected that something was amiss but the officers told her that they “do not look after that.”
She then contacted the owner of the company by telephone and he assured her that her son was ok. He even told her to go to his office in Georgetown the following day and she would hear his voice on the telephone.
However, before she could get to the office the owner called to tell her that he learnt that Mario went away and left his bag on a truck.
Bernard said she went to the office anyway and upon seeing her, an employee asked if she was the “dead boy mother.”
She responded that she never said that her son was dead but the worker did not say anything else and the “owner did not come out to talk to me.”
Not knowing what else to do, the woman decided to go to the Leonora Police Station a few days ago to make another report. The police took statements but by then the man who brought the bag had already returned to the interior.