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French Guiana family loses 12-year-old in accident
– calls on local authorities for justice
By Rabindra Rooplall
A French Guiana family on vacation will now be burying 12 year old Johnny Romeo Da Silva who was killed after a motorcar driven by a teenager slammed into the lad who was standing at the side of a bridge rail on the public road, at Umbrella Resort on the Soesdyke Linden Highway on Saturday last.
The family is calling on the Guyana Police Force to investigate the death and bring the 18-year-old driver to justice.
According to the father, John Da Silva, on Saturday last the family visited the Umbrella Resort on the Soesdyke Linden Highway. There his son was playing with a beach ball and everyone was enjoying themselves.
Dead: Johnny Romeo Da Silva
“My son had a ball playing with it. He later went onto the bridge and stood next to the rail where he was holding the ball and he was trying to throw it back into the water where his cousin was. Then came a grey car that hit him off the bridge while he was holding onto the rail dragging him 15 meters away, running over his body,” Da Silva lamented, adding that the vehicle was heading towards Linden when the accident occurred.
The distraught father told this newspaper that as his son’s mangled body lay motionless on the road, he waited for 45 minutes for the police from the Madewini Police Outpost to arrive at the scene.
“After the police arrive, we had some problems with the father of the driver of the car. He came up and started saying he have money and if his son goes to jail he can take his son out and things like that, while my son lay there dead,” Da Silva explained.
“When the police came, he (the driver) was arrested and we found out he was 18 years old and he was driving the car with a learner’s permit. He had two kids and a lady in the back seat and another man who was in the front seat got injured.”
Da Silva said after picking up his son’s body from the road, he placed it in his pick-up and subsequently proceeded to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre, where the lad was pronounced dead on arrival. The body was subsequently taken to the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour.
The post mortem on Johnny Romeo Da Silva which was done yesterday revealed that he died from multiple injuries. The lad’s right hand and leg were folded in two.
His devastated father explained that he will be shipping his son’s body back to French Guiana as early as possible for burial.
Adding that he visited the Eve Leary Police station where further requests for a proper investigation were made, Da Silva said he met with the Traffic Chief and explained his ordeal. He plans to visit Brickdam Police Station today.
Da Silva is a regular visitor to Guyana and entered the country on the 15, August, 2013.
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