Claudine Housen, Staff Reporter
PHILLIPS
WESTERN BUREAU:
MINISTER OF National Security Dr. Peter Phillips has described the gruesome killing of two girls last Thursday as a national tragedy, citing that "there is a terrible and vicious spirit that has taken hold of our people."
The minister paid an impromptu visit to the community of Town Head in Burnt Savannah, Westmoreland, yesterday to commiserate with the relatives of the two girls who were raped and murdered.
The killings were symptomatic of the "brutality sweeping the nation," he told residents of the the quiet farming community. Last Thursday, the battered bodies of nine-year-old Shaneka Shakes and her friend Shauna Kaye Ledgister, eight, were found raped in a cane field a few metres away from the Town Head Primary School.
SIMILAR TRAGEDY
"Earlier this year there had been an event of similar tragedy in Kilancholly, St. Mary. It was a tragedy then and that this is happening at the other end of the island a few months after, tells us that there is a terrible and vicious spirit that has taken hold of our people," the Security Minister said.
Dr. Phillips was making reference to an incident in January of this year when three children were brutally attacked and slain as they slept in their home in Kilancholly, St. Mary. The three, aged 15, 13 and four, were siblings. The siblings' throats were slashed and their bodies had multiple stab wounds.
"All I can assure you is that the security forces are going to do everything in their power to identify the person responsible," Dr. Phillips assured the community.
Dr. Phillips has pledged the assistance of his ministry in the counselling of the families and the 400-plus student body attending Town Head Primary School. He also called on the parents to keep an extra eye out for signs of trauma in their children.
Still shaken by the violent deaths of two of its youngest members, the Town Head community yesterday fasted and prayed for the lives lost and for justice to prevail.
"Yesterday all the churches are on fasting," said David Mc-Intosh, pastor of the Town Head Baptist Church.
Shauna Kaye's mother, has barred her two remaining daughters from walking along the "short cut" her sister took on the day of her death and said she will be walking her daughter to school in September.
