Toddler, father laid to rest side by side two weeks after Belmont shooting

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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In coffins which stood side by side, fa­ther and son Aqiyl and Aki­ni Kafi were laid to rest at the Crown Street, Pub­lic Ceme­tery yes­ter­day af­ter a fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Cor­pus Christi RC Church, East­ern Main Road, Laven­tille.

Catholic Priest Fa­ther Clif­ford Main­ooh, dur­ing his homi­ly, called on rel­a­tives and friends of the mur­dered fa­ther and son to unite for the bet­ter­ment of the coun­try.

Aki­ni, who would have cel­e­brat­ed his third birth­day on Thurs­day, was killed when the ve­hi­cle his fam­i­ly was trav­el­ling in was rid­dled with bul­lets in Bel­mont on May 7.

Aki­ni was de­clared dead on ar­rival at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, af­ter he was tak­en there with his moth­er, An­to­nia Cain-Kafi, who was al­so shot in the ve­hi­cle they were trav­el­ling in along Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road.

Cain-Kafi was on her way to drop her child off at day­care when the at­tack oc­curred. Her hus­band, Aqiyl Kafi and his friend, An­tho­ny Wil­son, were al­so killed in the shoot­ing.

Wil­son, who po­lice be­lieve was the tar­get, was laid to rest on Wednes­day.

Main­ooh said uni­ty is the on­ly way any­one can achieve great­ness. He stressed that uni­fi­ca­tion must in­clude the Holy Spir­it as the Catholic Church cel­e­brat­ed the Day of Pen­te­cost yes­ter­day. Main­ooh, who was not present at the can­dle­light vig­il held for Aki­ni on Thurs­day, which would have been his sec­ond birth­day, re­it­er­at­ed the call made then for a clos­er con­nec­tion to God in re­sponse to chil­dren be­ing mur­dered.

“If we take noth­ing from this ser­vice, let Aqiyl and his son, Aki­ni, speak to you to call on the Holy Spir­it, so that the bac­cha­nal we see and all the mis­takes any­body else does will be con­quered, and you will be able to see good­ness in them. It doesn’t mean you be­come blind to wrong­do­ing,” Main­ooh said.

He added that while prayers are im­por­tant, uni­ty with the help of the Holy Spir­it is para­mount for be­hav­iour­al changes and for peo­ple to “see be­yond our bar­ri­ers.” He added that this would al­low those who do ac­cept a spir­i­tu­al uni­fi­ca­tion to be able to love and be able to live in uni­ty.

Al­so speak­ing at the fu­ner­al was Aki­ni’s teacher, Di­an­na, who re­mem­bered her last day speak­ing with him on May 1. The day the child was mur­dered would have been his first day at school that week, she said.

“De­spite the pain we all feel to­day, I am hap­py that I had 365 days to love Aki­ni and to cher­ish him. His love I will keep in my heart for­ev­er. Aki­ni, I will al­ways love you and you will al­ways be Bloom­ing Minds’ per­fect black man.”

De­spite Homi­cide de­tec­tives re­quest­ing the pub­lic’s as­sis­tance in the triple killing, those re­spon­si­ble re­main on the run.