Sascha Wil­son

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