‘I Did Not Want Him To Die So Young’ – St. Lucia Times News

Black Immigrant Daily News

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The mother of a Saint Lucian teenager reported shot dead last week in Martinique, has told reporters here that she did not expect him to die in the way that he did.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting were not immediately clear.

“I did not want him to die so young and like that. Even if we have to expect death I wasn’t prepared for that at all,” the  mother said regarding her son, Jaheim Degaillard.

She said Jaheim would have been 19 years old this month.

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“My daughter came home crying and told me that my son is dead – they shoot him and after I hearing from people. I am seeing videos that he got shot and the video that I saw was some fellows trying and prevent the fellows from shooting him,” the mother recalled.

She said her son escaped but sustained a gun shot to the back and fell to the ground.

“That was it,” the mother told reporters.

She described her son as hardheaded but loving.

The Mother further disclosed that Jaheim went to Martinique as he was about to enter secondary school and attended a learning institution on the French Caribbean Island.

“He came down during the COVID time and he went back up and from that time he was up there,” she stated.

The mother of eight said the family is in mourning.

“I am just trying to hold the tears. Right now I am really shaking and I just don’t want to let the tears down. If I let it down it will get me down more. I want to stand strong for when the day of the funeral comes,” she told reporters.

The report of the fatal shooting of the young Saint Lucian in Martinique comes as the French Caribbean Island grapples with a spike in violent crime.

According to local reports, the territory has recorded 18 homicides so far this year – seventeen of them involving guns.

French Interior and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin is due to visit Martinique later this month where officials expect to discuss the crime situation with him.

Ahead of the Minister’s visit, the head of Martinique’s Executive Council of the Territorial Collectivity Serge Letchimy wrote him a letter urging an increase in material and human resources to deal with the crime situation on the French Caribbean Island.

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