Scores of peo­ple from all walks of life turned out to a vig­il in ho­n­our of mur­dered four-year-old Ama­rah Lal­lite in Fiv­er Rivers, Arou­ca, last evening.

The vig­il was or­gan­ised by mem­bers of the Five Rivers Cul­tur­al Car­a­van to pay their re­spects to lit­tle Ama­rah, who was de­cap­i­tat­ed on April 8. But the or­gan­is­ers lat­er ad­mit­ted that they did not ex­pect the turnout.

From around 6.30 pm, rel­a­tives, res­i­dents and strangers as­sem­bled at Five Rivers Junc­tion and be­gan march­ing north, along Range Road to­wards 5th Street, where the home of Ama­rah’s moth­er Tri­cia Vil­laru­el was lo­cat­ed, and where the lit­tle child’s life was trag­i­cal­ly end­ed.

Many in at­ten­dance donned pur­ple jer­seys and car­ried can­dles which flick­ered in the evening breeze, il­lu­mi­nat­ing signs of gloom on the faces of those in at­ten­dance.

Speak­ing dur­ing the event, Cul­tur­al Car­a­van pres­i­dent Arkiebah Alexan­der said it was or­gan­ised be­cause mem­bers were shocked by the in­ci­dent and dis­cov­ered that Ama­rah’s moth­er had par­tic­i­pat­ed in ac­tiv­i­ties with the group at the near­by com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, which is me­tres away from the home where the child was killed.

“Ama­rah’s moth­er and el­der sis­ter were mem­bers of our cul­tur­al car­a­van so when we found out about Ama­rah, we de­cid­ed to have a vig­il just among us and as word start­ed to spread, oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions got in­volved and it evolved in­to what we have here tonight,” Alexan­der said.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Alexan­der fur­ther in­di­cat­ed her sur­prise over the turnout for the emo­tion­al event.

“Last week we de­cid­ed to have some­thing small and it is telling that the loss of a child un­der such hor­rif­ic con­di­tions re­al­ly touched the hearts of not on­ly per­sons from the com­mu­ni­ty but we al­so have per­sons who are not from the com­mu­ni­ty com­ing to show that sup­port.”

Last Mon­day, the coun­try was left in shock af­ter Ama­rah was de­cap­i­tat­ed dur­ing an at­tack by a man who lived with her and her moth­er.

At about 10.10 pm on that day, the child’s moth­er ran in­to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion, which is lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance away from the scene of the at­tack, with her clothes tat­tered seek­ing help. Of­fi­cers who took her in­for­ma­tion es­cort­ed her to her home af­ter mid­night, where the body of the child was found in one of the bed­rooms and her head in a bar­rel at the back of the home.

An au­top­sy re­port con­clud­ed that she died from blunt force trau­ma to the head and de­cap­i­ta­tion. It was al­so re­vealed that the tod­dler was miss­ing an eye, her lips were cut open and her face had mul­ti­ple wounds. Ama­rah’s fa­ther, Shan­non Lal­lite, who was present at the vig­il, stat­ed that the demon­stra­tion should have tak­en place out­side the Par­lia­ment.

“I like the turnout here this evening but re­al­ly and tru­ly, what I find is that all this crowd here right now should have been by the Red House.”

Asked about the man ac­cused of the crime, who was sent for a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion af­ter mak­ing his first court ap­pear­ance yes­ter­day, Lal­lite stat­ed, “He not mad, he big and have sense and he know what he do. It hurt me, I telling you, as I come and see every­body here I start to cry.”

As par­tic­i­pants pro­ceed­ed to the Five Rivers Sa­van­nah where the vig­il cul­mi­nat­ed, many stopped by Ama­rah’s home, which is on the road that leads to the sa­van­nah, to light can­dles and of­fer silent prayers for the four-year-old girl.