Angelica’s body being taken home today

Gail Alexan­der

& Stephon Nicholas

The body of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie will re­turn to Trinidad to­day.

It comes ex­act­ly one week af­ter An­gel­i­ca was killed in a ter­ri­fy­ing jet ski ac­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point beach, To­ba­go.

The in­ci­dent has left the na­tion in shock and ral­ly­ing be­hind her Bar­rack­pore fam­i­ly, who are al­so ex­pect­ed to re­turn home to­day.

An­gel­i­ca’s fa­ther, Arnold Jo­gie, who was al­so in­jured in the in­ci­dent, pre­vi­ous­ly told Guardian Me­dia he would not be leav­ing To­ba­go with­out his daugh­ter’s body. He con­firmed yes­ter­day that arrange­ments are be­ing made for her body tak­en to Trinidad.

It’s con­firmed that An­gel­i­ca’s fu­ner­al will be on Sat­ur­day from her home at Ceme­tery Road, Mon­key­town. This will be fol­lowed by a cre­ma­tion cer­e­mo­ny.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is cov­er­ing the fi­nan­cial arrange­ments for her body to be tak­en to Trinidad.

“It is stan­dard for us,” he said in a What­sApp mes­sage.

How­ev­er, he added that it is the first time the THA has repa­tri­at­ed a body to Trinidad.

“We have nev­er done a repa­tri­a­tion to Trinidad be­fore. But we had to fly the body of a drowned vis­i­tor to Grena­da last year.”

Au­gus­tine pre­vi­ous­ly said the Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance has a con­tin­gency fund which cov­ers emer­gency sit­u­a­tions.

The Di­vi­sion of Tourism re­cent­ly praised in­dus­try stake­hold­ers who re­spond­ed swift­ly to help the fam­i­ly dur­ing their stay in To­ba­go fol­low­ing the ac­ci­dent.

A 32-year-old sus­pect from Canaan re­mains in cus­tody.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.

Mean­while, En­er­gy Min­is­ter and Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal vis­it­ed the Jo­gie fam­i­ly home on Mon­day and con­veyed con­do­lences from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Ac­cord­ing to Mooni­lal’s Face­book page, he told the griev­ing rel­a­tives, in­clud­ing An­gel­i­ca’s grand­moth­er, Rad­i­ca Jo­gie and her par­ents, who joined in vir­tu­al­ly from To­ba­go, that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was “deeply sad­dened by the heart­break­ing loss.”

Mooni­lal is the MP for the area where the Jo­gie fam­i­ly re­sides in Trinidad.

He said he was stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with her loved ones dur­ing this time of unimag­in­able loss.

Mooni­lal said, “An­gel­i­ca, a beloved daugh­ter of the Oropouche East con­stituen­cy, lost her life last Wednes­day af­ter be­ing struck Mooni­lal ex­pressed sin­cere grat­i­tude for the out­pour­ing of sup­port from the com­mu­ni­ty, ac­knowl­edg­ing the strength, uni­ty and com­pas­sion shown in the face of such pro­found loss.

Mooni­lal said the vis­it “...was one of qui­et re­flec­tion and shared grief, as all present mourned the loss of a bright and in­no­cent young life. May An­gel­i­ca’s soul at­tain sal­va­tion (mok­sha) ‘Aat­ma Ko Sadgati Prapt Ho’ and may her loved ones find strength and com­fort in the love that sur­rounds them.”

Mooni­lal and oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed to at­tend An­gel­i­ca’s fu­ner­al.