An eight-year-old Guyanese boy died yesterday in Suriname after he set himself afire with a firecracker but his father is not happy with the explanation for his death and plans to approach authorities in the hope of triggering an investigation.
Oryan Massiah, formerly of Essequibo, died some time yesterday in a Suriname hospital, according to his father Hector Massiah, who said he was given the news by relatives of the child’s mother. Massiah, who has not seen the child and his sister since their mother walked out of their marriage more than five years ago, was told that the mother was lighting a lamp when “the child kick the lamp out of she hand and he had a squib in he hand and it light and he catch afire. The mother say she try to put the fire out, but is a neighbour who come over with a sheet and out it.”
The man said he was told that the woman recently had a baby and her reputed husband was at home and he questioned why a neighbour had to put the fire out and not the stepfather. He feels that there is more to the incident and wants an investigation before the funeral. “She left to go to a thanksgiving with her aunt and she took the children and we kiss before she left… We did not have no problem we use to go to church and so we had no problem,” the self-employed Massiah added. He said since the split he has been looking for the woman and the children and while he heard she was in Suriname, it has only now been confirmed.
He is hoping that his six-year-old daughter, Oriana, is returned to him and his son’s death investigated. “Right now what they are telling me does not make sense and I don’t know really where to turn,” the man said.
