A Ma­yaro farmer re­mained hos­pi­talised in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion yes­ter­day, af­ter be­ing shot by gun­men while on the way to his farm in To­co on Wednes­day.

The 30-year-old, of Mafek­ing Vil­lage, Ma­yaro, was forced to hide in the bush­es un­til day­break on Thurs­day, nurs­ing a gun­shot wound to the ab­domen.

Res­i­dents of Sug­ar Hill, Ba­lan­dra, re­port­ed hear­ing gun­shots around 7 pm, but did not come out to check.

The vic­tim’s friend said he was awak­ened by a loud knock­ing around 5.30 am, and opened the front door to find the half-naked man hold­ing a bloody jer­sey to the left side of his waist.

He took the in­jured man to the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tion, where of­fi­cers rushed him to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.

The vic­tim said he had been head­ing to a camp lo­cat­ed in a forest­ed area ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500 me­tres from Sug­ar Hill, where he had a gar­den down in the val­ley, around 7 pm on Wednes­day. He heard sev­er­al gun­shots and re­alised he had been shot. He ran through the for­est to es­cape the gun­men, who chased af­ter him. The vic­tim re­called hear­ing a fa­mil­iar voice shout­ing, “Look he run dey!”

The vic­tim then hid un­til day­light be­fore mak­ing his way to his friend’s house.

An­na-Lisa Paul