A Berbice teenager is now hospitalised after an attack at last Saturday’s after party for the New Amsterdam Town Day, which is believed to have stemmed from his refusal to buy a drink for his eventual assailant.
Yuwyn Ramalo, 18, of Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam, is now a patient at the New Amsterdam Hospital, where he is being treated for injuries to his right eye and a stab wound in his back—allegedly inflicted by a man who has been described as a drug addict.
Ramalo’s assailant, who is currently in police custody, had previously threatened the teen, the boy’s mother Dollet Benn has said.
Benn told Stabroek News on Monday that she had allowed her son to go to the after party at the Matthew Allen Road since he hardly goes to any recreational activities.
However, sometime after midnight she received a call from a police officer, who informed her that her son was severely injured. She and her daughter travelled to the Central Police Station, where she found her son with blood gushing out of his eye. Shortly after, the police gave her a medical certificate to take him to the hospital, where he was admitted.
According to Benn, Ramalo’s friends told her that the suspect had asked the boy to buy a Guinness stout for him, even though he already had a Guinness in hand. In response, Ramalo reportedly asked where he would find the money to purchase the drink. She added that the man pushed her son and his friends asked him why he did that. Afterward, they said, the man walked away but turned around and hit Ramalo to his right eye using the bottle in his hand.
The worried mother noted that she was told that minutes after the perpetrator had committed the act, he returned to injure the boy’s eye further but was prevented from doing so by persons at the scene. He did, however, manage to stab Ramalo in his back.
Benn further related that when doctors cleaned the boy’s eye, they were able to remove glass flakes from his eye.
She also said that about two weeks ago, the suspect, who lives near her house, had told her son that he would murder him after the boy had looked at him. She said that they never reported the threat, since the man is a drug addict and they did not take it to mean anything. (David Papannah)
