A six-year-old girl of Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara has been hospitalised in a critical condition, allegedly with a gunshot wound to the head.
The police said in a press release that they are investigating what caused the six-year-old to be injured sometime between 22:30 hrs on Saturday and 05:30 hrs yesterday.
According to the police press release, a team from CID Headquarters visited the child’s home at Mon Repos, where she lives with her parents and sister, yesterday morning and examined the scene, a bedroom of a flat, unpainted wooden house. Detectives observed a suspected gunshot entry in the zinc, which appeared to have projected inwards in the vicinity of the child’s bed, the release said. Reddish stains, suspected to be blood, were on the bed, it added, but no spent shell was seen in or around the house.
Investigations revealed the child’s mother put her to bed at around 22:30 hrs on Saturday. At about 05:30 hrs yesterday, the mother told the police, she woke up, went to use the washroom and heard her six-year-old daughter groaning. When she checked, the police said, she discovered the child’s head and clothing drenched in what she suspected to be blood, the release stated.
The woman told the police that she immediately alerted her husband. They then rushed the child to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where she was examined by a doctor on duty, a CT scan was done and surgery was performed. The six-year-old was then admitted to the Intensive Care Unit where her condition is listed as critical, the release said.
The police said that the hands of the child’s father and mother were swabbed for gunshot residue and several people were questioned, but no one gave any relevant information and claimed they had not heard any sound (gunshot).
However, a neighbour told Stabroek News yesterday afternoon that according to what was rumoured, there had been a shooting incident early yesterday morning at a “wedding house” a few streets away from the child’s home. This could have resulted in a stray bullet hitting her to the head.
