6-year-old drowns in Belama canal

In the real estate business it is well known that a house on or near the water is more desirable than one further inland. And for the residents of Belize City’s Belama neighbourhood, the winding maze of navigable canals has always been one of the area’s greatest attractions. But on Saturday evening those waterways proved too attractive to one young resident and as a result a family is in mourning. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods reports.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

Last year, six-year-old Eldon Reid told his mom in a personal letter, that one day he will be all grown up and to not let her forget just how small he was…but Eldon never lived to see adulthood. Around six on Sunday morning, the police retrieved his lifeless body from this canal located across from the little boy’s house in the Belama Phase Three area.

Sally Palacio, Grandmother

“I noh hear no scream, I no hear no splash. Because I don’t have the radio on and I don’t have the TV on you see it was a Sabbath for me and I wanted to rest. So I did not hear nothing, nothing, nothing nothing.”

Sally Palacio, who helped raised her grandson, says around four on Saturday evening she was inside the house when Eldon and her other grandchildren went outside. Later when the children returned, Eldon was not with them. Palacio says the family frantically looked for him, but he did not respond to their cries. It was not until another young boy told them that he had seen Eldon by the canal just behind a neighbour’s house that the family began to fear the worst.

Sally Palacio

“He sneaked away because they are always bunched up together, so he sneaked. I believe he sneaked away from his sisters and brothers, that’s why when this young man saw him looking around to see if he was being watched, because he know he is not suppose to go by the river, he is not allowed to go there.”

The funeral service for Eldon Reid is planned for later this week. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.