By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrusssell@tribunemedia.net

A 12-year-old boy and his two siblings are fending for themselves after immigration officers apprehended their mother while posting eviction notices in the Kool Acres shanty town on Monday.

Clifton Charite last saw his mother Monday morning before school, unaware of the grown-up role he would soon be forced to play.

“They tell us my mummy get catch from the immigration,” he said yesterday, bowing his head. “Then we been to the police station. They said we needed her papers, but when we gone back for it, they said she owe too much papers and they can’t let her out.”

The young boy bounced a white ball between rundown buildings when The Tribune visited the shanty town yesterday. Three women were cooking food under the hot sun nearby. Two other women were washing their clothes in buckets.

 “We ain’t get no money,” Clifton said, explaining why he and his siblings had not attended school in three days.

 He said their mother would usually give them lunch and bus funds. Their father died years ago.

 The siblings were among numerous school-aged children playing in the shanty town rather than attending classes, their smiles belying their precarious situation.

 The neighbours who stepped up to help them have problems of their own to worry about: Authorities disseminated eviction notices in Kool Acres and All Saints Way on Monday, demanding they destroy their dwellings within 28 days as part of the government’s latest attempt to debase shanty towns throughout the country.

Jose Josue, a mother of two and a 17-year resident of the property, said she ran in the bush when she saw the immigration officers.

The Ministry of Works vowed on Tuesday to reach the “highest level of humanity and dignity” during the eviction process, but Ms Josue said officers used hammers to break into homes. She said residents claimed some people were beaten and slapped. She said the father of her children, a crucial financial supporter, was detained.

Juliane Olibrice, a mother of six whose house burned down in the shanty town in August, said she hopes the government reconsiders its demands. 

“I don’t have any money to build my own home yet,” she said, holding her baby as her eyes welled. “Even I was hoping somebody was going to help me build it back. Now we can’t do nothing anymore because they said they are going to break it.”

“I don’t work. I have six children. You see, today they are home because they aren’t going to school. I don’t have money.”

“I just want to know if they could change their mind because plenty of people, we don’t have nowhere to go.”

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Works said it would work with partners in the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Department of Social Services and reach out to “each household within unregulated communities to determine household make-up and needs.”

“Given that some existing residents within these communities will need to resettle/relocate into regulated housing, the Unregulated Communities Action Task Force (UCATF) is seeking to identify potential rental units in New Providence and all islands where unregulated communities exist,” the ministry said.

In May, Chief Justice Ian Winder ordered the demolition of two shanty town structures, far fewer than the 260-plus the administration wanted destroyed. This forced the Davis administration to rely on the minister of works to initiate a process under the Buildings Regulation Act.

However, the administration has said little about holding the landlords who facilitate the spread of unregulated communities accountable.

Kool Acres residents said they give money to the property owner: $50, $20, or whatever they have when he comes around.

They said they didn’t know the owner’s name but described him as the man who likes money.