RALPH BAN­WARIE

Chris­tine Ramdeen, the moth­er of Ju­nior Soogrim, who drowned with his younger broth­er Ja­son, 7, in a pool at an aban­doned quar­ry­ing site in Va­len­cia last Sun­day, says she is now fear­ful for her life af­ter she has re­ceived two death threats dur­ing the week.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, Ramdeen said the death threats were made via the phone by a male caller, who was very abu­sive and used ob­scene lan­guage to­wards her.

She said had not yet made any re­ports to the po­lice as she was busy mak­ing arrange­ments for her son’s fu­ner­al, which takes place on Sat­ur­day along with his younger broth­er.

“I have lost my on­ly child and am still shocked and am now be­ing trau­ma­tised by threats," Ramdeen said.

The fam­i­ly was hop­ing to do an­oth­er au­top­sy on the boys but Ramdeen said they called it off as they did not have the kind of mon­ey need­ed for the ex­er­cise.

Ramdeen said she did not get to see Ju­nior be­fore he left to go to his fa­ther's house on Sun­day.

“I did not see my son. He just left with­out even say­ing good­bye to me,” Ramdeen said.

She said she al­so did not spend to much time with her son dur­ing his birth­day cel­e­bra­tion the day be­fore his death as he was oc­cu­pied with oth­er chil­dren who were at their home for his par­ty.

"He had a won­der­ful time. I asked him if he en­joyed his birth­day par­ty and said yes. It was fun. He thanked me, hugged and kissed me and said I ap­pre­ci­ate what you had done for me mum­my,” she said.

Lat­er on Sun­day evening, Ramdeen re­ceived a phone call from her sis­ter Sher­ry telling her Ju­nior had just drowned.

"A few hours he was alive at my home en­joy­ing his birth­day par­ty and now he is dead. This will be life’s re­mem­brance for me,” Ramdeen said, adding she still does not be­lieve her son is dead.

Ramdeen al­so urged the po­lice not to sweep the in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­der the car­pet.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the boys had gone to their fa­ther Mar­tinez Soogrim's gar­den on Sun­day when they slipped away with­out his knowl­edge. The boys walked about a quar­ter-mile away from the gar­den to get to the pond.

Soogrim said neigh­bours lat­er ran to his gar­den and told him the boys had dis­ap­peared un­der the wa­ter. He said he was told the boys had joined neigh­bours and their chil­dren to bathe in the pond, which is 200ft in depth.

Soogrim said rel­a­tives and neigh­bours rushed to the pond where they found rel­a­tives of the neigh­bours whom the boys were with stand­ing on the bank. He said he and his broth­ers dived in­to the pond in search of his sons. The boys’ un­cle, Jer­ry, found them at the bot­tom of the pond on top of one an­oth­er, with the younger Ja­son on Ju­nior’s back.