Home alone

Police said yesterday that Kadifa Forde and her two siblings, aged two years and seven months, last saw their parents last Friday.

A party of policemen yesterday took the children from a neighbour’s home where they had been staying at Silver Stream, Aripero Village, Rousillac.

A police report stated that Kadifa, her sister and brother had nothing to eat during the four days they were left alone in a house. The two infant children — Abedino and Abby — survived on milk which their elder sister, Kadifa, fed them for four days.

With a look of sympathy etched on the faces, the policemen took the children away yesterday. One police officer commented that Kadifa went hungry and bottle-fed her infant brother and sister small amounts of milk.

A police report stated that shortly after midday on Monday, a report was made to the Oropouche Police Station that three children had been in a house alone for the past four days.

Police officers, the report stated, found the children alone inside the house. According to the report, the children were left in the care of a neighbour, Claudette Seaton. However, the report stated, the persons who left them did not return to the house.

The children were in the house since last week Friday. On Monday, police asked Seaton to take care of the children while they investigated.

When Newsday visited Seaton’s home yesterday, Kadifa was eating a meal of rice, lentil peas and stewed chicken. Her brother Abedino and sister, Abby, were bareback and wearing pampers.

Seaton told Newsday that she did not realise that the children had been alone in the house until Monday.

"I was hearing the little one crying and when I watch, I see her (Kadifa) sticking the curtains through the window," Seaton said.

It was when Kadifa asked her on Monday for something to eat, that Seaton became suspicious.

The woman said she saw Kadifa "ripping cane and sucking it."

When Newsday asked a shy Kadifa yesterday about her relatives, she said, "My... told me she was going in the market to sell to come back." The child said she was shown how to mix bottles. When asked if she had eaten anything for the four days she and her siblings were in the house, the girl said, "It had nothing to eat."

Yesterday, police took the children from Seaton to a home in Point Fortin. The children will remain there, police said, pending the outcome of their investigations.