Trini Post

The desperate search for a missing ten-year-old girl turned to near violence in the Laventille community yesterday, when scores of irate residents clashed with heavily-armed police and soldiers. In their bid to locate Tecia Henry, a pupil of St Rose’s Girls’ Primary School, angry residents blocked the major roads with burning debris, demanding swift and more efficient action by law enforcement officials. Tecia went missing after leaving her mother’s home on Essex Street, John John, around 7.30 am on Saturday. The child was sent to K and G Mini-mart, at the lower end of John John, to purchase a phone card and other items. She never made it to the shop.

Sitting in front of the parlour, which was closed yesterday, the child’s mother Diane was visibly distraught. She tried to comfort her 12-year-old twin daughters, Tia and Tamara, who sat at their mother’s feet shedding tears for their missing sister. According to Diane, the walk from her home to the mini-mart is a mere three minutes. “When I saw a certain time I sent one of her sisters to check on her. The owner of the shop said he glimpsed her going up Crook Street,” Diane said.

Believing the mini-mart might have been closed, Diana said she thought her daughter might have gone to another shop on St Paul Street, not too far from where the child’s grandmother lived. “I called the aunt, but they said she not around. I call everybody and they say she not around.” Diane said her daughter never ran away from home. “It was school and home; nothing else.” Tecia Henry was last seen wearing a pink and grey jacket, a denim skirt, a shower cap and slippers.

By:  GEISHA KOWLESSAR of Guardian

Read full Guardian Article.

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