‘It hard, hard to live. Up to now I can’t catch me lengths… I still hope and believe that he is alive.’
Every day brings back memories, every day she prays that her son is alive and every day she waits. Every day Salimoon Rahaman hears nothing.
It is going on to two years now that she has been living this way. “It hard, hard to live. Up to now I can’t catch me lengths. Many times I get sick over the same situation,” she said. She has given up her farming, her health weakens but she clings to a sliver of hope that her missing son, Ricky Jainarine, might still alive.
“Several people tell me that the child is alive but they get he far,” she said. “I still hope and believe that he is alive.”
he last time Rahaman saw her youngest child, he was leaving their Hog Island, Essequibo River home with a neighbour to collect his father, Jainarine Dinanauth, at Parika. It was late afternoon on August 11, 2009 and in their tiny speed-boat, Ricky and the neighbour, Henry Gibson, picked up Dinanauth and headed home.
The next morning the bodies of Dinanauth and Gibson were discovered in the shattered boat. There was no sign of Ricky. Rahaman scoured the Essequibo in search of her son in the weeks following the incident but her searches failed to yield any sign of him.
Police arrested no one but there were suspicions that rogue coastguards were involved. The suspicions heightened after three coastguards were charged with the murder of a gold dealer in the Essequibo River. That incident occurred several days after the collision.
Relatives surmised that the rogue coastguards had rammed the boat, robbed the men and killed them. An investigation by the Maritime Administration Department had found blue paint on the green coastguard vessel and there were green paint marks on the blue and white boat that the trio was in, suggesting that there had been a collision between the two. Persons had also reported that in the days following August 11, the coastguard boat was dry-docked for three days and there were reports that a section had been painted over. A Guyana Defence Force investigation was “inconclusive” but it also found that the coastguard boat was on the river around the same time as the boat the trio was in.
The blue paint samples from the coastguard boat were handed over to the police for testing. Rahaman said she saw a newspaper report where police said that the paint samples did not match. As a result, she said, she no longer believes that the ranks were involved. “I believe if they involve, they woulda say something,” she said, pointing to the “pressure” they faced. “I believe is somebody else. I believe the person is out there somewhere.”
While she clings to whatever hope she has, Rahaman has given up her farming. She has looked and looked but cannot find closure. “I even give up my farm for the sake of that. I give up my farm,” she says sadly. “I still wondering where is Ricky.”
Since the incident, Rahaman has fallen ill several times. “Christmas pass me sick. I was in the hospital,” she said. “I tek on and get sick just like that.” She has kept all the newspaper clippings of the incident and looks at them. “I can’t sleep in the night. I does just (see) Ricky in front of me,” she said. “I never go through so hard time in me life… I just wondering what happen.”
As she waits, no one has told her anything and even the police have not officially spoken to her about the results of the paint test.
While her older children support her, Rahaman is trying to get a house lot on the mainland since she is unable to farm at present. She said that she wants to start a little business once she can get the lot.
But everyday she thinks about the incident. A bag that washed up at Wakenaam shortly after the incident and then disappeared had contained Ricky’s remains, relatives had initially thought. “I believe he’s still alive. I always keep saying that he’s still alive,” Rahaman said yesterday adding that Ricky’s brother and sister say the same thing too.
