Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While most Mar­aval res­i­dents were prepar­ing for work, san­i­ta­tion work­ers made a gris­ly dis­cov­ery when they stum­bled up­on the body of a new­born ba­by girl ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the po­lice, Amal­ga­mat­ed San­i­ta­tion Ser­vices work­ers were col­lect­ing garbage from a bin at the cor­ner of Sad­dle Road and Bowen Road at around 6 am, when they no­ticed the child’s hand stick­ing out of a black garbage bag.

On check­ing, the work­ers found the ba­by girl’s body.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the bag al­so con­tained a pla­cen­ta.

The garbage bin where the child’s body was found was oblique­ly op­po­site the Mar­aval Po­lice Sta­tion.

A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer was called in and de­clared the ba­by dead. The child’s body was tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, for stor­age.

The scene was al­so vis­it­ed by of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion I, who are ex­pect­ed to view se­cu­ri­ty cam­era footage from near­by busi­ness­es as part of the en­quiry.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area hours lat­er, sev­er­al res­i­dents spoke among them­selves while look­ing at the garbage bin where the ba­by’s body was found.

Long-time res­i­dent and shop­keep­er Neil Ro­driguez, whose busi­ness is lo­cat­ed across the street from the garbage bin where the child’s body was found, said he was un­set­tled by the dis­cov­ery.

“When I came out around 6.30, the garbage truck was al­ready parked up and the po­lice were there. It feels very bad,” Ro­driguez said.

“I’m a hu­man be­ing, but right now I feel like hu­mans have lost touch with God. It feels like hu­mans now have lost touch and I don’t even think the Church can bring us back.”

Res­i­dents speak­ing among them­selves at the shop lament­ed the child’s death and spec­u­lat­ed who or where the child’s moth­er could be.

One res­i­dent said the garbage bin where the child was found was not on­ly used by near­by res­i­dents but any­one with garbage to dump, not­ing that it was lo­cat­ed on the Sad­dle Road which con­nect­ed Mar­aval and could have been used by scores of peo­ple from out­side the com­mu­ni­ty.

Res­i­dent Cyril Ro­driguez said he was al­so shak­en by the fact that a child’s body could be dis­card­ed.

“It wasn’t nice to see. Every­body is feel­ing bad. Peo­ple from all about does throw garbage in the bin. I am a fa­ther of chil­dren so it has to have a wicked per­son who does some­thing like this,” Ro­driguez.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, head of the TTPS Child Pro­tec­tion Unit, Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne, de­scribed the in­ci­dent as heart-break­ing and called on the com­mu­ni­ty to ral­ly to­geth­er to help each oth­er.

Guy-Al­leyne said the child’s death and the way in which the body was dis­card­ed was a “stain on the so­ci­ety” which could not be ig­nored.

“Each life mat­ters. All life is pre­cious and it is our moral du­ty to pro­tect the most vul­ner­a­ble among us,” Guy-Al­leyne said.

“We are urg­ing the pub­lic to be vig­i­lant and re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ties. We all play a role in pro­tect­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of so­ci­ety.

“We are ask­ing peo­ple to seek help and we as a so­ci­ety must cre­ate an at­mos­phere where peo­ple feel they can seek help amongst us.”