73 mothers in mourning: Young lives lost in a decade as gun violence escalates in T&T

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

In the last ten years, 73 chil­dren, 12 of whom were girls, have trag­i­cal­ly lost their lives as a re­sult of gun vi­o­lence.

These chil­dren, aged 11 months to 18 years, were killed by in­di­vid­u­als us­ing firearms as they went about their dai­ly lives, ran er­rands for their par­ents, limed with friends, sat out­side their homes, played out­doors, trav­elled in their fam­i­ly’s car and slept in the com­fort of their beds.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures com­piled by Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk, a de­tailed break­down re­vealed that:

Three were 18 years old

17 were aged 17 years old

18 were aged 16 years old

11 were aged 15 years old

Nine were aged 14 years old

One was 13 years old

14 were aged 12 years or younger

There were in­stances where chil­dren were hit by stray bul­lets or caught in the cross­fire be­cause their fam­i­ly mem­bers were the in­tend­ed tar­gets.

Oth­ers had their lives cut short be­cause they were led down the wrong path or fa­tal­ly shot by po­lice.

A few of the chil­dren were al­so fa­tal­ly in­jured while play­ing with un­se­cured firearms.

The in­flux of il­le­gal guns falling in­to the hands of crim­i­nals has es­ca­lat­ed the sit­u­a­tion, mak­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go less safe.

In ad­di­tion to the chil­dren who have al­ready lost their lives, dozens more have been crit­i­cal­ly in­jured by gun vi­o­lence, and some have been caught as col­lat­er­al dam­age.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports com­piled by Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk, from Feb­ru­ary 17 to May 7 of this year, four chil­dren were gunned down, three of whom were an 11-month-old, a 23-month-old and an eight-year-old.

In Feb­ru­ary, Mal­abar Sec­ondary School stu­dent Ezekiel Moore, 16, was killed af­ter a bul­let that was meant for his fa­ther ric­o­cheted and struck him dur­ing a gun at­tack out­side their La Hor­quet­ta home.

On March 31, 11-month-old Jay­den Sut­ton and his fa­ther, Joseph Sut­ton, 25, were gunned down at their Dun­don­ald Hill, St James, home.

The shoot­er stuck a gun through a bed­room win­dow, killing the fa­ther and ba­by while they were asleep on a bed.

De­scribed as bright, tal­ent­ed and full of life, J’Lay­na Arm­strong, eight, a pupil of New­town Girls’ RC School, was one of four peo­ple shot and killed in the car they were in on La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant on April 19.

The three oth­er vic­tims were Obe­taiye Lat­iff, 23, Chelsea Ed­wards and Asim Arm­strong.

Three weeks lat­er, on May 7, 23-month-old Aki­ni Kafi and his fa­ther, Aquil “Fats” Kafi, were killed in a hail of gun­fire.

The tod­dler was one of three peo­ple fa­tal­ly shot af­ter gun­men in­ter­cept­ed their car in Bel­mont.

The third vic­tim was An­tho­ny “Mon­ster” Wil­son, 28.

Last Ju­ly, Kafi’s 14-year-old son, Zion Roberts, was shot mul­ti­ple times in Bel­mont.

The da­ta showed that of the 73 chil­dren, 61 were boys and a dozen were girls.

The ma­jor­i­ty of fa­tal shoot­ings oc­curred from Care­nage in the west to the north­east­ern re­gion of San­gre Grande.

Chil­dren were vic­tims of gun vi­o­lence in Diego Mar­tin, Port-of-Spain, Bel­mont, Mor­vant, Tu­na­puna, D’Abadie, Mal­oney, La Hor­quet­ta, Arou­ca, Mal­abar, Va­len­cia and Waller­field.

In Laven­tille alone, a dozen of the 73 chil­dren were killed by gun vi­o­lence.

Ari­ma record­ed nine deaths. On­ly two were re­port­ed in To­ba­go.

Stretch­ing from Ch­agua­nas to Rio Claro, eight chil­dren died of gun­shot wounds.

A break­down showed that 14 chil­dren (five girls and nine boys) were killed in 2023, the high­est fig­ure in the last decade.

The girls iden­ti­fied were six-year-old Kylie Mel­oney, Pre­cious Wills, 17, ten-year-old Faith Pe­terkin, Ar­i­anne Pe­terkin, 14, and An­drea Lal­lan, 13.

There were nine gun-re­lat­ed mur­ders each in 2021 and 2022.

The years 2016, 2018 and 2019 each record­ed five dead­ly shoot­ings.

In 2025, ten boys be­tween the ages of 14 and 18 were shot dead.

The on­ly fa­tal shoot­ing vic­tim in 2017 was a 17-year-old boy, mark­ing the low­est num­ber record­ed in the past decade.

Among the eight chil­dren who lost their lives in 2024, four were girls.

The vic­tims were five-year-old Ani­ka Guer­ra, Is­abel­la Teelucks­ingh, 15, Aaliyah San­to, 16, and Sa­lome Ranghill, 15.

One of the most heart­break­ing fa­tal shoot­ings was that of Ste Madeleine Sec­ondary School stu­dent Videsh Dookran, 15, who in 2022 was shot in the chest, chopped, and had his body stuffed in a la­trine a short dis­tance from his Gol­con­da home.

In an­oth­er dev­as­tat­ing in­ci­dent in 2022, nine-year-old Jo­mol Mod­este was fa­tal­ly shot when gun­men opened fire on spec­ta­tors while they were watch­ing a friend­ly foot­ball match at a recre­ation­al ground in En­ter­prise.

One bul­let pierced the back of Mod­este’s head, killing him on the spot and trig­ger­ing a wave of out­rage on so­cial me­dia.

Mod­este was a Stan­dard Three pupil of Cara­pichaima RC School.

Among all the vic­tims of gun vi­o­lence that year, the youngest was 18-month-old No­va Br­ere­ton, whose moth­er, Sachel El­liot, 32, was al­so a ca­su­al­ty.

Both moth­er and tod­dler were gunned down just days be­fore Christ­mas in 2022 in­side a mi­ni mart in Moru­ga.

The gun­man’s in­tend­ed tar­get was a con­trac­tor.

In 2024, gun­men fired up­on busi­ness­man En­ri­co Guer­ra, killing him and his five-year-old daugh­ter, Ani­ka Guer­ra, out­side their mi­ni mart in Moru­ga.

Ani­ka, a preschool­er, was shot mul­ti­ple times in the face, low­er back and arm dur­ing the brazen gun at­tack.

In a painful wait­ing game for jus­tice, Melis­sa Hug­gins and Leona Al­leyne find them­selves among many par­ents who are long­ing for an­swers for their slain chil­dren.

As the days turn in­to weeks and months, the unan­swered ques­tions on­ly deep­en the fam­i­lies’ re­solve.

For Hug­gins and 24-year-old Al­leyne, each pass­ing mo­ment is a re­minder of the love they have lost and the clo­sure they con­tin­ue to seek.

Hug­gins’ 12-year-old son Ezekiel Paria, who was full of life and sim­ply en­joy­ing a bike ride near his Laven­tille home, was trag­i­cal­ly struck by a stray bul­let in Feb­ru­ary 2024.

More than two years lat­er, Hug­gins said no one had been ar­rest­ed for the mur­der.

“It’s been months...more than two years, I ain’t hear noth­ing from the po­lice,” Hug­gins com­plained.

“They don’t even call to give an up­date. Well, the po­lice need to get their act to­geth­er.”

Hug­gins be­lieves the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has gone cold.

“It seems you can’t get jus­tice in this coun­try. I have put every­thing in God’s hands. If you can’t get jus­tice from the law, you would have to leave it up to the Lord.”

She said the 27 months that had passed had been too painful.

When­ev­er a child is fa­tal­ly shot, Hug­gins said, it re­opens the wounds of her own loss, and her heart aches for the par­ents now nav­i­gat­ing the same unimag­in­able pain and grief.

It has been more than five weeks since Al­leyne’s 11-month-old son Jay­den Sut­ton and her 25-year-old com­mon-law hus­band, Joseph Sut­ton, were shot and killed while they were asleep in a bed­room of their Dun­don­ald Hill, St James, home.

The shoot­er pushed a gun through a bed­room win­dow of the house and fired up­on the fa­ther and son.

“I just feel sad and an­gry,” said Al­leyne last Fri­day dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view.

She be­lieves the longer the po­lice take to make an ar­rest, the less im­pact it will have in solv­ing the case.

The po­lice, Al­leyne said, had plead­ed with res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty to come for­ward with in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the dou­ble mur­der.

“I think a child died in the com­mu­ni­ty. I think some­body should speak up if they don’t like that. I am just keep­ing hope.”

Jan­u­ary

De­niel­son Smith, 17, Laven­tille

Mark Richards, 15, Laven­tille

Jodel Ram­nath, six, Beetham Gar­dens

Au­gust

Cy­on Mor­ris, nine, La Ro­maine

Sep­tem­ber

Mo­hammed Ali, 15, Ch­agua­nas

Ju­ly

Jevon Bradley Paul, 17, Ari­ma

Jan­u­ary

Joshua An­drews, 14, Laven­tille

April

Ka­reem Forde, 16, Laven­tille

May

Noah Sim­mons, 16, Mara­bel­la

June

Joshua James, 16, Laven­tille

Ju­ly

Mi­keel Cae­sar, 16, Laven­tille

Feb­ru­ary

De Shawn Hit­lal, 17, San­gre Grande

April

Akeil Phillip, 16, Laven­tille

May

Nao­mi Nel­son, 14, Care­nage

Ju­ly

Chris­t­ian Smith, 16, Guayagua­yare

De­cem­ber

Key­on Gill, 12, La­dy Chan­cel­lor Hill, Port-of-Spain

Jan­u­ary

Jor­dan Archibald, 16, Waller­field

Daniel Dem­ber, 17, En­ter­prise

April

Ikel Williams, 17, Va­len­cia

Feb­ru­ary

Tami­ka Grif­fith, 16, Clax­ton Bay

March

Semi­on Daniel, 15, Laven­tille

An­to­nio Fran­cois, 16, Laven­tille

Akid Ja­heim An­tho­ny Par­ris Duke, 15, Arou­ca

Christo­pher Cum­mings, 17, Tu­na­puna

Ju­ly

Javaughn Al­varez, 17, Mal­abar

Oc­to­ber

Mk­weli Pas­cal, 17, Mara­bel­la

No­vem­ber

Javon Charles, 17, Laven­tille

Josi­ah Fran­cis, 17, Laven­tille

Jan­u­ary

Chris­t­ian Liv­er­pool, 11, Ari­ma

Feb­ru­ary

Kevin Kyle Spring, 14, Diego Mar­tin

Jael Hyles, 14, Port-of-Spain

Ju­ly

Caleb Mar­tineau, 16, Mar­aval

Oc­to­ber

Jo­mol Mod­este, nine, En­ter­prise

Videsh Dookran, 15, Gol­con­da

Nizam Owen, three, Diego Mar­tin

No­vem­ber

Mar­lon Stew­art, 14, Mor­vant

De­cem­ber

No­va Bere­ton, 17 months, Moru­ga

Jan­u­ary

An­dre Singh, 16, D’Abadie

Keron Madoo, 16, D’Abadie

Kylie Mel­oney, six, San­gre Grande

Dar­shan Ram­nauth, 16, St Au­gus­tine

Feb­ru­ary

Kendall Fran­cis, 18, Rio Claro

March

Kiel Paul, 14, Va­len­cia

June

Nicholas Jor­dan, 15, Ari­ma

Au­gust

Pre­cious Wills, 17, To­ba­go

Sep­tem­ber

Faith Pe­terkin, ten, Ari­ma

Ar­i­anne Pe­terkin, 14, Ari­ma

Shane Pe­terkin, 17, Ari­ma

An­drea Lal­lan, 13, Rio Claro

No­vem­ber

An­im Per­sad, 15, Arou­ca

Ol­un Jones, 18, Arou­ca

Jan­u­ary

Is­abel­la Teelucks­ingh, 15, Las Lo­mas

Feb­ru­ary

Ezekiel Paria, 12, Laven­tille

June

Wayne “Foots” Carim­bo­cas, 17, Ari­ma

Ju­ly

Jerome “GI” Joseph, 17, Port-of-Spain

Au­gust

Ani­ka Guer­ra, five, Moru­ga

Sa­lome Ranghill, 15, Freeport

Aaliyah San­to, 16, Waller­field

De­cem­ber

Je­re­mi­ah Out­ram, 16, La Hor­quet­ta

Jan­u­ary

Arnold Isaac, 16, Matelot

Beris Joseph, 15, To­ba­go

Christo­pher Be­har­ry, 16, Chick­land

March

Chris­t­ian Pat­ter­son, 18, Clax­ton Bay

April

Ezekiel Ram­di­als­ingh, 17, La Hor­quet­ta

May

Zwade Al­leyne, 17, Mal­oney

Ju­ly

Zion Roberts, 14, Bel­mont

Au­gust

Ki­mani Dy­er, 17, Ari­ma

Oc­to­ber

Jov­el Paul, 15, San Juan

De­cem­ber

Fabius Malchan, 14, Ari­ma

Feb­ru­ary

Ezekiel Moore, 16, La Hor­quet­ta

March

Eleven-month-old Jay­den Sut­ton, St James

April

J’Lay­na Arm­strong, eight, Mor­vant

May

Twen­ty-three-month-old Aki­ni Kafi, Bel­mont