Res­i­dents of Laven­tille Road yes­ter­day re­newed the call for war­ring fac­tions from the Sixx and Sev­en gangs to unite and stop killing each oth­er.

Stand­ing in front of a group of chil­dren from the com­mu­ni­ty where mur­dered school­boy Ezekiel Paria lived, Laven­tille res­i­dent Kings­ley Kings­ley stressed, “We are not out here to pick a side but to say that Sixx and Sev­en are not work­ing for us.

“We are out here to say that we love every­one from Sixx, from Sev­en...and the in­no­cent ones who are in the cir­cle, we are feel­ing the pain.”

It was a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day in which res­i­dents of Mapp Trace and en­vi­rons, where Paria was shot, had staged a peace­ful protest to ex­press their pain and dis­plea­sure over the on­go­ing gang war­fare which con­tin­ued to claim in­no­cent lives.

Kings­ley called on the lead­ers/hi­er­ar­chy of both gangs “to stop it!”

He added, “We know all of al­lyuh and al­lyuh know all of us. We are hurt­ing. We are lors­ing all of our chil­dren. We are lors­ing our moth­ers. We are lors­ing our fa­thers. We are lors­ing our com­mu­ni­ties. We are in pain. We are bawl­ing.”

Kings­ley spoke of the wide-rang­ing con­se­quences the war­ring gangs had brought about in re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties, as he said res­i­dents were of­ten left strand­ed as taxi dri­vers would stop work­ing af­ter cer­tain hours.

In ad­di­tion, he said res­i­dents were be­ing de­nied jobs and oth­er em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties due to where they live, which was un­fair and dis­ad­van­ta­geous.

Kings­ley said, “This protest is not to say we from Sixx and we pick­ing a side. We are say­ing that we are one. We go to school to­geth­er. We know every­body and every­body know we. We are say­ing it is time to unite again. It is time for we to come back as broth­ers and sis­ters, cause we are African and we are black peo­ple. It is we who are hurt­ing. Our com­mu­ni­ties are hurt­ing.”

He said there was no else to blame when peo­ple ex­pressed fear about go­ing in­to the high-risk ar­eas.

Kings­ley again ap­pealed to war­ring gang lead­ers, “We are ask­ing all sides to come out and protest, from the Sev­en side too...all law-abid­ing cit­i­zens..come out and say enough is enough.”

He added, “Our chil­dren grow­ing up and hear­ing gun­shots. Our chil­dren grow­ing up and see­ing guns, not books.

“We show­ing our chil­dren bul­lets and killing, whilst them show­ing their chil­dren books and the way out of pover­ty.”

He said the way out of Laven­tille was on­ly through ed­u­ca­tion and this year had to be dif­fer­ent in or­der to change the cur­rent lega­cy be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed.

“Sixx can’t do with­out Sev­en, and Sev­en can’t do with­out Sixx,” he stat­ed.

The group of chil­dren, whose ages ranged from five to 15 years, wore their re­spec­tive school uni­forms and held plac­ards and signs aloft as they chant­ed and clapped, call­ing for jus­tice for their mur­dered class­mate and friend.

Paria, 12, died on Feb­ru­ary 26, af­ter be­ing shot in the head dur­ing a gun at­tack on a long-time res­i­dent in the com­mu­ni­ty. The Stan­dard Five pupil of the East­ern Boys’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, whose dream was to be­come a pi­lot, was due to write the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am on March 21.

Stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the group of griev­ing chil­dren, Paria’s aunt Cys­tal­ie Hug­gins said it was on­ly yes­ter­day that she was able to com­pose her­self.

Res­i­dent Steve An­drews held up a sign with the words “Jus­tice for Ezekiel” writ­ten in block let­ters as he said, “Peo­ple mur­der­ing one an­oth­er. They have no re­gards for the chil­dren to­day, who is the fu­ture.”

He said it was time cit­i­zens re­alised the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion fac­ing them and the de­struc­tion be­ing done to the na­tion.

“When you are tak­ing away the youths and the po­ten­tial prime min­is­ters, doc­tors, lawyers, me­chan­ics, en­gi­neers and pi­lots from the coun­try by just killing in­no­cent chil­dren...shoot­ing in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly, is a very, very mad and psy­chot­ic thing...is like the coun­try gone mad,” he said.

“It is time for Laven­til­lians to come back as one,” he plead­ed.

For­mer coun­cil­lor Ne­dra Mc Clean point­ed to the group of masked school chil­dren as she ex­plained the sig­nif­i­cance be­hind the cov­er­ing.

“The mask is just a sign of them hid­ing their faces be­cause they don’t know who will be next. Who’s next?”

She con­tin­ued, “We are not go­ing to show our faces be­cause we don’t want the gang­sters, the gun­men, whoso­ev­er...we don’t wan­na be next so we are hid­ing our faces. We are scared. The chil­dren are trau­ma­tised.”

Mc Clean again praised Paria, say­ing he was tak­en too soon.

“It seems as if the good die first,” she said.