11-year-old drowns during fishing expedition with friends

“He was my only child” – dead lad’s mother

By LaWanda McAllister

The lifeless body of an 11-year-old pupil of the Enmore Primary School, East Coast of Demerara (ECD), was pulled from the Enmore Seawall on Monday afternoon.
The dead lad has been identified as Latchman Ramanand of Sixth Street Foulis Housing Scheme, ECD. He reportedly left home on Monday at about 15:00h with two friends on a fishing expedition. Reports are that the lad was pulled into the ocean by the heavy current and disappeared.
He was subsequently discovered and taken to the Dr CC Nicholson Hospital but he was pronounced dead on arrival.

However, the dead lad’s mother, Nanranie Persaud, told Guyana Times that her son left home with an adult along with his 15-year-old stepbrother and two other children.
At that time, she recalled that the intention was to go fishing and her son promised that he would not spend long. Persaud said this is not the first time that her son went to the seawall to fish.
“Meh son seh he is going and watch them catch fish… up to now, the woman who went with them ain’t tell me what happened. I am waiting for her to tell me what is going on…”, the aggrieved mother cried.
Persaud said based on what she was told by the Police, her son was walking on the seawall when a child who went on the fishing trip with him allegedly pushed him overboard. As a result, he submerged and did not surface.
“I also heard that when he reached there, he was fighting to go into the water, but my thing is, if you as the older one sees that he was fighting to in the water you can just make a phone call and tell his parents. I would have gone there and deal with it. She sat there and see him in the water,” the dead child’s mother said.
The woman stated that she is overwhelmed by the information she has been receiving, all of which, she said, remains sketchy.
“He was my only child… this is so hard for me and I can’t explain anything right now, I can’t explain how I feel… when I go to the scene, they were holding his stomach and trying to get the water out of him, when we take him to Nabaclis I got blackout and I didn’t know nothing more. When I woke up, they told me that my son is gone,” the tearful woman said.
Latchman was described as a very quiet and peaceful child who had a great life ahead of him. An investigation has been launched into the incident.