Latest update April 27th, 2026 12:04 AM
One year on… Two children will never know their father
The crime wave that is currently plaguing Guyana has devastated many families. Eight-month-old Kiazianna Thompson will have only a photograph to acquaint herself with her father, because Kwesi McKay was stabbed to death on June 17, 2007, Father’s Day last year, while she was still in her mother’s womb.
Today, whenever she is shown a photograph of her father, she could only stare at it. She would never have that father’s love and presence, missing in so many homes.
Her two-year-old sister, Akezia, although she has seen her father, was too young to have developed fond memories of him.
When she sees her father’s photograph, she could only say, ‘Da Da’.
McKay was stabbed to death by a youth, following a chic-chic game in Bartica. He was working on a road project in the community, and was scheduled to return home to complete his house in Sophia.
According to his reputed wife, Onika Thompson, the house building project has been put on hold because she, as a single mother of seven, does not have the means to complete the modest place they call home.
And although a suspect has been charged with McKay’s murder, Thompson is unable to attend the preliminary sessions to get a full understanding of the circumstances leading to her husband’s death.
She has to rely on a family member who has the financial means to travel all the way to Bartica, where the Preliminary Inquiry is being held.
Shortly after June 17 last year, Thompson received a dreadful telephone call informing her that her reputed husband was stabbed.
The mysterious caller did not tell her that her husband had been killed, mainly because she was in an advanced state of pregnancy at the time.
When she eventually learnt that McKay had died, she summoned the strength and courage to at least be there for her children. But times have since become very difficult for her and the children.
With the little public assistance and help from relatives, Thompson hardly makes ends meet.
“I miss him so much, because if he was around at least we would have had a better place to live,” Thompson told this newspaper.
And with so much talk in circulation about the consequences of the father’s absence from the home, Thompson’s situation is even harder.
It is not like she would go out and look for any man just to have a father figure in the home.
She, like many others before her, would try her best to bring up her children — six girls and a boy — in a way that would ensure they do not fall on the wrong side of life.
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