An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Even as the search for miss­ing cousins Ry­keel Dook­na and Rikeil Cum­ber­batch con­tin­ued yes­ter­day, the fam­i­ly’s fears in­creased af­ter two de­com­pos­ing bod­ies were found float­ing in the man­grove at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Sea Lots, late in the af­ter­noon.

The dis­cov­ery around 4 pm sent the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team to the area so they could de­ter­mine if they were the men they had spent the last two days search­ing for in Ari­ma.

While there was no con­fir­ma­tion from the po­lice up to 8 pm as to the iden­ti­ties of the vic­tims, some so­cial me­dia news out­lets de­clared it was them, leav­ing the griev­ing fam­i­ly won­der­ing what was re­al­ly go­ing on.

Dook­na, 18, and Cum­ber­batch, 21, were last seen around 2 am on Sat­ur­day (Sep­tem­ber 14).

Their rental car was found idling in some bush­es at 10 am that morn­ing, along the Blan­chisseuse Road in Ari­ma.

How­ev­er, there was no sign of ei­ther man.

Calls to their cell phones al­so went unan­swered.

Con­firm­ing the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team had spent the day yes­ter­day comb­ing the ter­rain lead­ing out­wards from where the car had been found, as well as the Sama­roo Vil­lage area, the group’s leader Val­lence Ramb­harat said they had not turned up any clues as to their where­abouts.

How­ev­er, he too ex­pressed con­cerns af­ter learn­ing that two bod­ies were found float­ing in the man­grove at Sea Lots.

Guardian Me­dia was told the de­com­pos­ing bod­ies were ex­treme­ly bloat­ed and in an ad­vanced state of de­com­po­si­tion, lead­ing the search and res­cue team to spec­u­late that the men had been killed and dumped in the wa­ter pri­or to Sat­ur­day.

One body was re­trieved be­fore 6 pm but there was some dif­fi­cul­ty re­cov­er­ing the sec­ond body.

Last evening, po­lice said they were hop­ing that the cousins’ rel­a­tives would have turned up in Sea Lots to help with the ini­tial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the bod­ies. They said due to the bloat­ing of the bod­ies, it was im­pos­si­ble for of­fi­cers to do so based on their de­scrip­tions.

Dook­na is of mixed de­scent, five feet, four inch­es tall, slim build and brown in com­plex­ion with a plait­ed and shaved hair­style. He was last seen wear­ing a black jer­sey, a pair of long, black jeans and a pair of white sneak­ers. Cum­ber­batch is of African de­scent, five feet, five inch­es tall, slim build and brown in com­plex­ion with a corn­row hair­style. He was last seen wear­ing a white jer­sey, a pair of blue three-quar­ter jeans and a white and blue sneak­ers.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the miss­ing men can call the Ari­ma po­lice at 667- 3563 or 800-TIPS; or con­tact the po­lice at 555, 999, 911, or call any po­lice sta­tion.