For the second time for the month, police yesterday afternoon cleared blockages off the West Coast Berbice Public Road, where fires were also lit after residents protested one again over the murders of cousins Isaiah and Joel Henry.
Late yesterday after-noon, Commander of Region Five Kurleigh Simon confirmed to Sunday Stabroek that the blockages were removed, and that traffic was flowing again.
Several sources on the ground noted that there was a heavy police pre-sence along the road up to last evening.
When questioned, Simon said a fire was lit at one location at No. 3 Village, although a resident of the area told this news-paper that a smaller fire had also been lit nearby.
In a brief statement, the Guyana Police Force yesterday said that a report was received about the West Coast Berbice public road being blocked at a section in No. 5 Village. As a result, ranks from the Division immediately responded and discovered that the road was indeed blocked and the debris used to block it was lit on fire.
Police said that the responding ranks managed to partially extinguish the fire and clear the roadway, allowing traffic to flow again, while at that time efforts were underway to clear the remainder of the roadway.
No one was arrested, the police added.
According to residents on the ground, protesters at Number 5 Village, while calling for the police to make an arrest in the murders of the cousins, blocked the road.
A source said tires were placed across the road at Number 3 Village, West Coast Berbice, where a fire was started.
A CARICOM Regional Security System (RSS) team has visited the country to aid the investigation of the murders but its findings are yet to be officially released to the public.
On September 6, the bodies of Joel Henry, 19, and Isaiah Henry, 16, both of Number Three Village were found on a coconut farm in the backlands of Cotton Tree Village.
However, investigators probing the murders of the teenaged cousins had determined that they were not killed at the site where the bodies were found.
“Preliminary findings showed that the bodies of the Henry boys were discovered at a secondary crime scene,” the Guyana Police Force’s spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Royston Andries Junor, had said in a previous statement.
The discovery, Andries-Junor had said, means that the heinous murders were not committed where the bodies were found. “Person(s) moved the bodies after the murder and placed them at the locations where they were subsequently discovered,” he noted.
“At this time, the investigators are actively in search of the primary crime scene which would greatly assist in the probe as the primary crime scene will have an abundance of evidence linking the perpetrators to the crime,” he added.
According to Andries-Junor, the determination was made after investigators were able to overcome some challenges and get to the crime scene.
On the evening of the day the bodies were discovered, protests originating at No. 5 Village erupted. These convulsed the WCB for days after and led to attacks on commuters and the murder of Haresh Singh in what was seen as reprisal for the killing of the Henry cousins.
Presently, no one is in custody for any of the three murders.
