Black Immigrant Daily News

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Marissa Edwards –

MURDERED mother Marissa Edwards was beaten and strangled, her autopsy revealed.

Edwards, 39, was an administrative clerk at the Department of Paraclinical Sciences at UWI’s Faculty of Medicine. Her decomposing body was found in a drain in Waterloo on September 26, just over a week after she was reported missing.

Her boyfriend Simeon Roopchand’s body was found hanging in the Tabaquite forest on September 24, four days after his car was found abandoned a kilometre away.

Speaking with Newsday on Monday afternoon, Edwards’ sister Lisa Edwards said according to the autopsy report, Edwards died of blunt force trauma and strangulation with a copper wire, which was found around her neck.

Lisa Edwards said the funeral for her sister will be finalised by the end of the week.

Since the discovery of her body, there have been nightly wakes.

“This is like a blessing in disguise, because she really liked her gospel music, so we get the chance to play that for those who are coming.”

She said she wondered how her sister spent her final moments as she expressed her anger at how she died.

Last Friday both the principal of UWI, St Augustine campus, Prof Rose-Marie Belle Antoine and Dr Sue Ann Barratt, head of UWI’s Institute for Gender and Development Studies, denounced Edwards’ killing.

In a media release Antoine said the killing of Edwards was irrational and pointed to “deep-seated defects” in society that needs to be addressed.

Barratt said: “We call for an ‘all-of-society approach’ in identifying, and eliminating all forms of tolerance that facilitate the growth, expression and acceptance of these interlocking and varied forms of violence.”

Edwards was one of two women murdered in September. The other was Krystal Long, who was first believed to have died after falling during a night of binge drinking.

Long, the 37-year-old mother of three, died on September 9, after going out drinking with a man she had known for just over a year. Her autopsy, done on September 19, said she died of multiple blunt force injuries. She was buried on September 23.

Long’s male friend was arrested at his Arima home last week in relation to her death.

Relatives told Newsday Long was afraid of the man, who used to beat her. One of the occasions, weeks before she died, was recorded on camera and showed a man dragging Long by the hair into a car, which drove off.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Interview

Samedi, à la résidence départementale du Gosier, il était question d’autonomie et d’évolution institutionnelle. A l’initiative du président du Département, élus et universitaires ont joint leurs réflexions lors d’un séminaire débat parmi eux, Fred Reno, professeur de science politique à l’Université des Antilles.

France-Antilles Guadeloupe

1423 mots – 03.10.2022

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) reported that, yesterday, 2 October, RCIPS officers arrested two men on suspicion of attempted murder and possession of an unlicensed firearm, in relation to the shooting incident which occurred in West Bay on the morning of Thursday, 29 September.

One of the men, age 31 of George Town, was further arrested for possession of ecstasy.

Police conducted further searches of the residences of the men, and recovered a quantity of cocaine at the address of the second man, age 28 of Bodden Town, who was further arrested on suspicion of possession of cocaine.

Both men remain in custody as investigations continue.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Member of Parliament (MP) for Trelawny Northern, the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Tova Hamilton, has criticised the controversial Programme for the Resettlement and Integrated Development Enterprise (Operation PRIDE) that was established by a People’s National Party (PNP) Government in 1994.

Hamilton has taken issue with the fact that more than 20 years after a number of her constituents made deposits on Government-owned lands for the construction of houses under the programme, the promised development is yet to materialise.

A first-term MP in the former PNP stronghold, Hamilton recently levelled the criticism while making her contribution to the 2022-2023 State of the Constituency Debate in the House of Representatives.

She said Operation PRIDE was launched to “inter alia, resolve the housing needs of the majority of low-income Jamaicans by developing new planned settlements and the upgrading of existing settlements.

“Operation PRIDE was described as a unique method of making land legally accessible to low-income groups at affordable prices through Government subsidies. The necessity arose given the high cost of housing solutions in the formal sector; the limited available capital for housing; and the inability of the majority to access mortgages,” she said.

“It was the year 2000 that Operation PRIDE decided to utilise Government lands in Cave Island (Northern Trelawny) for a new planned settlement: 269 members of a providence society signed up for lots at a subsidised cost, and were promised infrastructure such as sewage, electricity, water, roads and drains.

“Fast-forward 22 years and the promise of infrastructure remains unfulfilled because of project overruns, improper choice of location for our particular development (which is very rocky terrain), corruption and nepotism,” Hamilton lamented.

She said the situation was made worse by the fact that 10 persons paid in full on the original price that was agreed.

“The 269 members of the providence society have now looked to me to solve this 22-year-old issue, which is one of 80 such informal settlements island-wide that PRIDE has left in its wake. It is evident that PRIDE will cost you everything, but leaves you with nothing,” Hamilton declared.

Operation PRIDE became a major scandal for the then PJ Patterson-led PNP Government, with accusations of millions of dollars wasted on lands that were not suitable for building, and connected persons benefitting, instead of those for whom the programme was designed. One Government minister was forced out of the Cabinet as a result of the scandal.

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