Justice For Adriana

Jun 23, 2025 Editorial, News

Editorial…

Kaieteur News – Yesterday the family of Adriana Younge summoned the strength to lay her to rest after two months of agony over her mysterious death.
A sizeable crowd accompanied her body from the Sandy’s Funeral Parlour on the West Demerara to Vergenoegen on the East Bank Essequibo where a church service was held before she was interred. Family members buried her not fully convinced that she died by drowning as was determined by the police investigation and their pursuit for an independent investigation on their terms has been stymied by the reluctance of the Guyana Police Force to cooperate.

In the first place, when the family demanded an independent investigation into the child’s death, the Guyana Government hired a retired Canadian police officer who conducted a lightning probe and concluded that the police had done an excellent job. When they pursued their own second autopsy and requested a copy of the first one supervised by the Guyana Police Force, they were told that they have to go to the court to get such, as it was not standard practice to give relatives a copy of the autopsy report.

The need for a copy of the first autopsy was upon that of the United States forensic pathologist Dr. Carol Terry, who conducted a second autopsy on Adriana’s body in the U.S. Attorney, Dr. Dexter Todd had said that the pathologist cannot proceed with her report unless she receives information from the police. As we reported, Dr. Terry had submitted a six-page document containing over 100 detailed questions related to the police investigation. Among the pathologist’s concerns was a peculiar marking found on Adriana’s body. Dr. Todd had also reaffirmed the need for Dr. Terry to access the post-mortem examination (PME) report that was completed on April 28 by a team of international pathologists.

A little girl died in mysterious circumstances, and police and politicians are quibbling, playing their usual tricky, self-serving games. This country has fallen so far, that it may be past the point of salvaging. Unquestionably, those now in charge do not even have the basics on how to comport themselves in a period of loss. A period that has provoked national outcries, and while the family is still struggling to make sense of the fate that has befallen their little girl, and they, the surviving relatives. Many Guyanese are ashamed of what has happened. An attempt at coverup was the first action from those who are the nation’s protectors, the leading agents for the finding of facts, what really happened.

Commonsense emphasizes that it could not have been the first such coverup when other situations developed. But this is Guyana, where there is covering up, instead of drilling down to get to the truth in a matter that all would like to forget, pretend didn’t happen. And just maybe, that it was all a hoax, or a product of the imagination. When the community erupted in public rage and public protest, President Ali dropped what he was doing and shared his presence and sympathy with the grieving family. This is what presidents do in a crisis situation, and what happened in Tuschen to that 11-year-old child, brought out the positive side in Guyana’s president. He showed that he had some light still left in him. But there is uncertainty about that, given what he then proceeded to do, not too long afterward.

Unfortunately, the national leader in a period of national trauma went down the usual slippery track that is now so much a part of the national culture. He found the time to record his conclusion that the protests had elements of what is “politically instigated.” We have trouble determining how any of that helped the situation that was so raw and distrusting. In the height of a crisis, the last area that presidents should cast their minds to is politics. But this is the calibre of national leadership that Guyanese witness day in and day out. Citizens are fast losing hope on even the most routine of issues, and when the heavily freighted hangs over the nation, then the last dregs are lost, given national leadership reactions. We join once again with the family and all others in calling for justice for Adriana.

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Adriana Younge, Editorial, justice, Mysterious death

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