Child drowns in Belize City
It’s all too common to see little children walking alone through the streets of Belize City. Sometimes they are sent to the shop to buy. Sometimes they are just out playing in the street or wandering around in search of something to do, someone to play with. This weekend one little boy who was sent out alone didn’t make it to his destination. And once again no one noticed until hours later. By then he was already dead. Janelle Chanona reports.
In the warmth of Friday afternoon, children from the Racecourse Street West Canal area decided to go swimming in front of the stretch of beach known as “Old College”. While most of the children were at least ten years old, one of them was only four.
His name was Rashawn Flowers. His mother, Kareen Flowers says she sent Rashawn, alone, to his grandmother’s house on Plues Street early that afternoon. Neighborhood children told News Five Rashawn followed them to the beach. He went swimming with them, but they took him out of the water when one of the older boys started teasing him. When the children were ready to leave, there was no sign of Rashawn. They thought he had gone home, so they were not concerned. Later that night, Rashawn’s father went to pick him up at his grandmother’s house. It was then they discovered he was missing and that he had been swimming earlier that day. At that point the darkness was already an enemy to the search.
Resident of the area
“Friday night I was going out and a young lady came to me and asked me if I saw a little boy. I told her no. Then I asked her what happen? Well she told me she don’t know what happen, she just miss her son. So I say well. So she ask me for a flashlight. I told her I didn’t have any flashlight so I wish her luck that she find her son.”
Janelle Chanona
“It was not until early the following morning that the search for four year old Rashawn Flowers began. It was his father Emory Flowers, that found his four year old’s body floating in the sea and pulled it to the shore.”
Resident of the area
“Saturday morning, according to my mother told me that they find the little boy. His father find him and she gave him a sheet and they took him away.”
Q: “Is it a common thing to see children so young swimming without an adult there?”
Resident of the area
“Exactly, because I say a four year old shouldn’t be out of their house, you know. An adult business to be with him or her you know. Because as what I said, I have two children and we live so close to the sea and I so coward to let them come out to the sea by themselves.”
When asked why she sent a child as small as four to walk all the way to Plues Street by himself in the first place, his mother said she had often taken him to his grandmother’s and thought he knew the way.
But while there’s plenty of blame to go around now, none of it will bring little Rashawn Flowers back. Janelle Chanona for News Five.
