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Linden schoolboy’s body retrieved from lake
By Enid Joaquin
What should have been a day of celebration, on Monday, turned to tragedy for a South Amelia’s Ward mother who had planned to take her two children to dinner at Church’s Chicken to celebrate her daughter’s birthday. Instead all of her plans were dashed after she received the devastating news that the elder of the two children, nine-year-old Jamal de Jonge, had disappeared in or around a lake
Dead: Jamal de Jonge
some distance away from their home. He was a grade four student of the Regma Primary School.
The boy’s body was fished out of the lake, shortly after noon yesterday, bringing several hours of searching to an end.
His mother, Sue-Anne Hermanstyne, who was at work at the time of the incident, was too distraught to speak to the media yesterday.
But her sister Racquel Henry (Belle) during an emotional interview with this newspaper said that she had taken the children to the lake for an outing as it was her niece Aquilah’s birthday.
The woman, in between sobs, related that while at the lake the children were playing at the water’s edge, when Jamal asked her to pick some fruit for him.
“Is go I go to pick the fruit – I don’t think was more than five minutes, but when I come back Jamal was nowhere to be seen – so I ask them is where Jamal gone; nobody ain’t know, all they tell me was that he was flicking at the side of de lake.
Henry said that they begun a frantic search, after she had called her sister and the police, but their efforts were futile.
After a sleepless night the family resumed the search yesterday, and engaged the services of a diver, who was successful in retrieving the child’s body.
The child’s aunt said that she had been taking care of Jamal and his sister Aquilah since last year and was very attached to them.
“These children used to come and eat at me, no matter how much they eat at home; they would still want to taste my food. My sister even offered to pay me to take care of them, after she started working at GWI, but I refused – I ask her how I gon take money to take care of me own niece and nephew. I love both of them very much. I only wanted them to have some fun…now look what happen,” she cried.
Over the years, several children have lost their lives in the Blue lakes, and the numerous creeks and even the Demerara River during the holiday seasons. More often than not the children leave to go to these waterways unknown to their parents.
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