The Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA) is still to locate the mother of Eon Shurland, who has been in its custody since late April.
Stabroek News was told on Wednesday that after a visit three weeks ago to the Kuru Kururu, Linden/Soesdyke Highway area, where the woman lives with two younger children, officers have not returned. However, the agency is still trying all avenues to locate the woman.
According to a CPA official, it is preferable that Eon remains with the agency for at least another six months. This newspaper was told that Shurland’s case may be one of “neglect at the highest level.” The child’s grandmother, Katie, who had cared for him since he was a baby, has since indicated to the Agency that when her husband returns from the interior, they will decide whether they can afford to care for him.
Katie told Stabroek News that owing to her ailing health and financial problems, she had sent the child to live with his mother in January. She visited him during the Easter season and he appeared in good health. She subsequently learnt he was missing after he was sent by his mother to a male friend, who lived in the same area. After hearing that he was missing, she had expressed fear that he had been killed.
The CPA official told this newspaper that the child is “doing nicely.” The boy has not attended school for some time but will be doing so come September.
From all accounts, he disappeared from his home on April 27 and later ended up at the Diamond Diagnostic Centre, East Bank Demerara. He was wandering in the compound for two days and was given food by the doctors there. A guard at the location subsequently took the child into the building to see a doctor, who later contacted the Amerindian Affairs Ministry after several unsuccessful attempts with the Agency. The child was eventually handed over to the Agency. At that time, he appeared frail and only told the probation officers his first name. He did not divulge any information about what had happened to him, where he was from or where his parents were. Following the publication of an article about the missing child and his photograph, his identity was revealed.
