Yvonne Webb

Moru­ga Com­pos­ite School was ef­fec­tive­ly shut down both Thurs­day and Fri­day as claims of de­mon pos­ses­sion have again cropped up among the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion.This comes al­most one year to the date last No­vem­ber, when priests and pas­tors were called in to treat with stu­dents who dis­played be­hav­iours thought to be of a spir­i­tu­al na­ture.Of­fi­cials of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­port­ed­ly met on Fri­day with teach­ers and par­ents. Some stu­dents are now afraid to at­tend class­es.

Con­fir­ma­tion has come from De­vanand Sinanan of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion. Sinanan says there are re­ports that the un­usu­al be­hav­iour dis­played by stu­dents last No­vem­ber, has resur­faced.A teacher at the school con­firmed yes­ter­day that for the past two weeks, stu­dents have be­come ex­treme­ly vi­o­lent, speak­ing loud­ly in dif­fer­ent voic­es and lan­guages.

He said two Fri­days ago, stu­dents be­gan be­hav­ing vi­o­lent­ly out­side of the school com­pound and the po­lice were called in."But the po­lice had to leave as the chil­dren be­came ex­treme­ly vi­o­lent. The Emer­gency Health Ser­vice (EHS) was al­so called in on an­oth­er oc­ca­sion as the stu­dents' con­di­tion was thought to be health re­lat­ed, but they could not sub­due the chil­dren."

The teacher said of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, in­clud­ing a psy­chi­a­trist, met with par­ents of stu­dents in Basse Terre on Thurs­day.They al­so vis­it­ed the school where they met with teach­ers."The psy­chi­a­trist ad­mit­ted that what they were deal­ing with is not phys­i­cal but spir­i­tu­al," the teacher who was in the meet­ing said."He said they did not know how to deal with this sit­u­a­tion."The school is ex­pect­ed to re­main closed to­mor­row as of­fi­cials vis­it to coun­sel teach­ers.