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Sophia baby drowns in bucket
Some residents of ‘B’ Sophia were thrown into deep mourning as one of their youngest members died by drowning yesterday. The victim was 18-month-old Malachi Williams who fell into a bucket of water and drowned.
The child’s guardian, 62-year-old Evelyn Latchmin, discovered the child with his face down in a bucket around 10:30 hors yesterday.
According to Latchmin, she left child sleeping in the house to go to a neighbour for water since there is no potable water in her yard.
Malachi Williams
“It as less then 10 minutes…I put he down fuh sleep and I just went over de road fuh water and when I come back I go in de bed room but he ain’t went on de bed so I start calling fuh he,” the woman said.
The woman said that after not getting any response she kept calling and began a frantic search around the house for Malachi.
“Is when I run out back the bedroom I glace over at the dining table and I see “Malo” foot up in de air and he head down in the bucket.”.
The woman said she grabbed the child out of the bucket and began screaming for help.
A neighbour said that after hearing the screams she ran over to see what was the problem.
“When I reach over I see Aunty Evelyn holding “Malo” and he was frothing from he mouth and right away I asked wha happen, and she tell me like he drown,” the neighbour related.
The woman added that they immediately rushed the child to the Georgetown Public Hospital but from her estimation the child was already dead when they arrived at the institution.
As news of the child’s death got around the community neighbours converged at Latchmin’s home I, shock and grief.
Little Malachi was left with Latchmin when he was just a few weeks old.
According to the woman, in 2007 a woman approached her stall in ‘B’ Field, Sophia to purchase $40 worth of cigarettes.
Latchmin said the woman was carrying a baby and asked her to keep the baby as she was going around the corner and would return shortly.
“The woman never came back. I didn’t know what to do so I just decided to keep the baby hoping that the woman would come back,” Latchmin said.
She said from that moment on the baby became the neighborhood baby.
With the assistance of neighbours the woman said she began taking care of the child and gave it a name.
The baby was taken to the South Road Clinic where fortunately a nurse recognized him by a birthmark on his left foot.
“The nurse then give us the mother’s name as Nicola Williams and the estimated time of the child’s birth, but we never located the mother,” one neighbour said.
However once they got the mother’s name the neighbours said they all decided on a name for the baby.
“We decided to name him Malachi Williams, because the name is a biblical name and it was a man in the olden days who touched the lives of many, and that is what this baby did,” the woman said.
Neighbours said that on more than one occasion efforts were made to secure a birth certificate for little Malachi but that never materialised since none of them was biologically related to him.
Over at Aunty Evelyn’s home neighbours were heard lamenting of how jovial the child was and the fact that he was loved by everyone who came into contact with him.
They also spoke of how much interest Aunty Evelyn showed in the child she grew to love as her own.
The woman said now life would not be the same for her as Malachi had become her companion.
“I loved that child as my own; he became a part of my family. I did all I could for him; he was never short of anything,” Latchmin said.
The woman said that despite the fact she is not employed when she wasn’t able to provide for little Malachi, her neighbours stepped up to the task.
The woman added that her son who lives with her also ensured that Malachi was well taken care of.
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