Senior reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian.co.tt
The three Rio Claro girls who went missing on Tuesday were found last evening in an abandoned house a short distance away from their home.
Hunters’ Search and Rescue captain Vallence Rambharat confirmed last evening that a villager spotted the girls around 7.40 pm at the property, which is about 100 feet from their home. The villager alerted members of the search party who were still looking for them.
Rambharat did not have any further details, as the girls were taken to the police station.
Sisters Kareena, 17, and Kashmera Baball, 13, and their cousin Akeila Maniram, 13, were last seen at the back of the sisters’ home at De Mallac Street, Rio Claro, at 5.45 pm on Tuesday.
In an earlier interview with Guardian Media, Akeila’s mother Zila Khan-Maniram said her daughter was spending “a little holiday” with her cousins. She said her sister-in-law told her she went to bathe and left the girls in a backroom upstairs her home, but when she came out the girls were gone.
Khan-Maniram said she searched for them in the community and could not find them.
Crystal Baball had pleaded with her daughters and niece to return home.
“I just want them to come home. Wherever all yuh is, all yuh don’t have to be scared, just come home. That’s all we want. We just want all yuh to come home, to make sure all yuh safe. Just come home please,” she lamented. —With reporting by Kellyann Lemmesy
