Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

It was on­ly on Wednes­day that Rad­i­ca Smith thought she would start buy­ing Christ­mas gifts for her son Rishi, but tragedy jolt­ed her as he died hours af­ter gun­men at­tacked. Rishi, 33, a me­chan­ic of Dhe­li Road, Fyz­abad, died while un­der­go­ing treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

His friend, Em­manuel Cud­joe, 30, re­mained ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal, suf­fer­ing from gun­shot in­juries.
A re­port stat­ed that Rishi and Cud­joe were stand­ing along Archibald Street around 10.40 pm on Wednes­day when three men ap­proached.

The gun­men ran af­ter Rishi and Cud­joe for a short dis­tance and shot them.

They fled by run­ning on­to Roots Av­enue. A res­i­dent took the men to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where they were treat­ed. Rishi died around 4.55 am yes­ter­day.
At her home in Fyz­abad yes­ter­day, Smith said she was awake when Rishi’s girl­friend Avi called around 10 pm, ask­ing if she heard any­thing, in­form­ing her that some­one shot the younger of her two sons. Avi picked up Smith in her car, and they went to the hos­pi­tal.

Smith said while doc­tors did not tell her much about Rishi’s con­di­tion, they told her that he may not sur­vive.
Clutch­ing a pho­to­graph of her and her son, Smith re­called how Rishi would ban­ter with her and care for her fol­low­ing the death of her hus­band, Roger, eight years ago.

He moved in with his girl­friend three months ago but would call and vis­it her dai­ly. She said he was a lov­ing son who helped her pay bills.
“I was up be­cause I nor­mal­ly wait for him to call me. He calls me every day. I do not know how I will make out now,” Smith said.
Smith said all she heard was that Rishi was at Archibald Street and knew there were guys he usu­al­ly hung out with there.

Based on what she knew, no one had threat­ened or at­tacked him be­fore, so she could not spec­u­late why some­one had killed him.