Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt 

Re­lief and sad­ness yes­ter­day as the body of 14-year-old Sameer Rag­bir was found. Sameer’s body was caught in a fish­ing net at a Ma­yaro beach not far from where he was last seen on Mon­day. 

Rel­a­tives, vil­lagers and search teams gath­ered as he was brought to shore and then re­moved by un­der­tak­ers. He is be­lieved to have drowned.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the fish­er­men were as­sist­ing in the search around 11.45 am when the body was found about 500 feet from the shore­line. Hunters Search and Res­cue Team, led by Sham­sudeen Ayube, was there when the body was found.

Re­call­ing what hap­pened, vol­un­teer mem­ber Shail Jit­tans­ingh-Phillip, said, “The fish­er­men threw the seine and af­ter the sec­ond try with the seine, the seine missed, and then he float­ed up. One of the fish­er­men jumped off the boat and said ‘look him there’.”  She said the fish­er­men, based on their ex­pe­ri­ence with the tide, had sug­gest­ed that they search that area for him.

On Tues­day, Sameer’s moth­er made of­fer­ings and bared her breast to the sea. It is wide­ly be­lieved that when a moth­er does this rit­u­al, the moth­er of the ocean would re­turn those lost at sea. 

Sameer had ac­com­pa­nied his two sis­ters and their two male friends to Ma­yaro on Mon­day to cel­e­brate one of his sis­ters’ 18th birth­day. The group planned to spend the night at the near­by Sun­set Beach Re­sort. 

But around 3.30 pm, Sameer was bathing at the near­by beach off Bel Air Road when he got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty about 200 feet from the shore­line be­fore sub­merg­ing.

Joshua Wil­son, who was on the beach wait­ing to play foot­ball with friends, told Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day that he tried to help him. 

Val­lence Ramb­harat, leader of the oth­er Hunters Search and Res­cue Team, was al­so in­volved in the search for Sameer. He said life­guards should be sta­tioned at re­sorts and pop­u­lar ar­eas.

“So, it’s not on­ly in the best bathing ar­eas, but al­so in front of re­sorts, and pop­u­lar ar­eas along the Ma­yaro coast­line,” he said.

The own­er of the re­sort had pro­vid­ed ac­com­mo­da­tion and meals for Sameer’s rel­a­tives while the search was on­go­ing. 

Of­fi­cers of the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.