The body of an 11-year-old boy was recovered from a canal close to his De Kinderen, West Coast Demerara (WCD) home on Friday night, hours after he went missing.
Akon Richards, of Lot 45 De Kinderen, is suspected to have drowned.
He went under while playing in the canal which separates the communities of De Kinderen and Met-en-meerzorg, around 3.45 pm on Friday. He could not swim.
According to the Guyana Police Force (GPF), enquiries revealed that Richards and two younger cousins were playing in the rain on Friday afternoon when he went into the canal.
“He (Akon) was initially cheered on by his cousins who were on the dam but subsequently encountered difficulties and was seen struggling to remain on the surface of the water,” the police said in a statement.
The police added that Richards disappeared in the water and did not resurface.
A search team was then mobilised and the boy’s lifeless body was pulled out of the canal around 10.30 pm.
Richard’s death left his community in a shock.
Following the death of his mother two years ago, he had been living with his grandmother, Carol Williams.
Williams told Sunday Stabroek that Richards, who was awaiting the results of the National Grade Six Assessment, was usually in and out all day in recent months. Whenever he was not at home, she said, he could be found at a nearby shop or wash bay.
On Friday morning, Williams said, she was doing her chores when Richards left for the wash bay. “He does normally deh at the wash bay with them boys, so I say alright, good,” she recalled.
According to her, Richards returned home several times after and went back out.
In the afternoon, Williams recalled, it started to rain and Richards went out to ride his bicycle. “He riding and he shaking me off. Then he say he going off by the dam and I tell he no don’t go there, stay right hay and continue riding,” Carol said.
She added that she watched Richards ride for some time after which he came into the yard and was playing with his cousins.
As time passed, Carol said she was looking for Richards to send him to the shop to make a purchase but she could not locate him.
As a result, she started to search for him. “So I went straight to the wash bay and I ask the boy if he see Akon and he say no,” she said.
Assuming that Richards might have gone to buy an afternoon snack as usual, Williams returned home. “He does normally go down the dam and buy icicle, plantain chip, lollipop or whatever he got fah buy,” she noted.
However, hours passed and he did not return and Williams realised that something was amiss. “I keep checking in and out and I ain’t seeing him. I check back the wash bay but he wasn’t there. So I say ‘weh Akon could be?’ I seh no this is not Akon. Akon don’t deh away from my eyesight,” she noted.
Williams continued to search for him but she could not find him. However, when she returned home, she said one of the children informed her that Richards had been in the water.
She related the same to her son, who recommended that she ask businessman, Bamchan Doobay, who owns a shop near to the canal, to review his CCTV camera footage. It was during the review that they discovered that Richards went into the canal.
‘Initially ignored’
According to the GPF statement, Richards’ cousins, who had been with him when he went into the canal, alerted their mother to what transpired but were initially ignored. “They, however insisted that the victim went into the water but did not come out, which caused their mother to commence calling out for the victim,” the statement said.
After their mother got no response, the police said she alerted Williams and together they called out for Richards but got no response. Once alerted, residents searched the canal for more than two hours before they located Richards’ body.
Speaking to Sunday Stabroek, Doobay related that he would usually see Richards around. “…The problem is this is not the first time he use the trench. More than one time he went to the trench and when you holler on he and so, he go come out and then he go gone again,” Doobay explained.
According to Doobay, efforts are underway to raise funds for his funeral expenses.
The boy’s body is currently at the Ezekiel Funeral Home and an autopsy is scheduled to be conducted on Monday.
