A Disturbing News
It was a regular Sunday afternoon when everything changed. My mother and I were in front of our house, burning some garbage as part of our weekend cleanup routine. The smoke from the small pile wafted up into the air, and my mother used a stick to push some leaves further into the fire. That was when a neighbor came rushing towards us, shouting.
“Dem find two dead boys in the Back Dam!” the neighbor cried out.
My mother stopped what she was doing. “Wha?” she asked, her voice shaky. The stick fell out of her hand, and she stared at me with wide eyes. This kind of thing doesn’t happen here. Not in our village.
As the names came out—Joel Henry and Isaiah Henry—my mother froze again. “Joel?” she whispered. “Is Joel Henry?”
Joel wasn’t just a name to her. He had been her student back in play school—a sweet, quiet boy who never gave trouble. He had also been in my nursery and primary school class, though my own memories of him were faint. Our families didn’t know each other closely, but my mother knew enough to feel the weight of the loss.
That day, our quiet village of Cotton Tree was thrown into chaos. Nobody knew exactly what happened. All we knew was that two young boys, cousins, had left their homes one afternoon to pick coconuts. When they didn’t return, their families grew worried and began searching. The next day, their mutilated bodies were discovered in a clump of bushes at a coconut farm. Both boys bore horrifying injuries, including deep marks on their bodies that some described as resembling an “X.” The news sent shockwaves through not just our village but the entire nation. Gruesome and tragic, their deaths became the center of national attention, but the grief their families endured was immeasurable.
Living Through the Chaos
The day the bodies were found, a tense silence fell over our village. Nobody knew what to believe. Rumors spread rapidly—some said the boys had been caught stealing coconuts, while others claimed their bodies were found far from where they had been picking. The uncertainty only added to the fear and confusion.
When I sat down with my mother to ask her about that time, her face clouded with emotion. “Joel and Isaiah, dem boys didn’t deserve this,” she said, shaking her head. “The whole village was quiet, like people didn’t even want to talk too loud.”
Adding to the tragedy was the murder of Haresh Singh, a boy from the same class as Joel Henry and a friend since play school. Haresh lived nearby, and the news of his brutal killing shook our village even further. Three days after the Henry boys were found, Haresh’s body was discovered at Number 3 Back Dam. His burnt motorcycle lay nearby, and it was revealed he had been pulled off his bike and beaten to death with pieces of wood. Witnesses later confessed that his murder was an act of revenge for the killings of Joel and Isaiah, fueled by baseless accusations against Haresh’s family.
My mother’s voice broke when she spoke about Haresh. “He and Joel used to play together in school. Quiet boys, both of them. And Haresh didn’t even live far from us. To hear what happened to him, it make my heart heavy. He was so young.”
The tension in the village was palpable. For me, it was the first time I witnessed such raw fear and anger. People were scared to leave their homes, and many Indo-Guyanese families felt they were being unfairly blamed. Meanwhile, online spaces became breeding grounds for racial hatred. Social media was flooded with comments that amplified the divisions between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese communities. For a young person like me, it was both terrifying and disheartening to see the worst of humanity laid bare.
The protests that followed were chaotic and intense. Roads were blocked with burning tires, making it difficult for police and investigators to access key areas. Groups of people gathered in the streets, some to demand justice and others to stoke further division. Shops were looted, and acts of violence escalated, leaving innocent people harmed and businesses destroyed. The streets, once quiet and familiar, had turned into battlegrounds. The chaos made it nearly impossible for the authorities to conduct thorough investigations, and it felt as though the entire system had ground to a halt.
When Race Entered the Story
At first, the story was about two boys who went missing and were found dead. But it didn’t take long for people to draw lines between Cotton Tree’s predominantly Indo-Guyanese community and the Henry boys, who were Afro-Guyanese. Protests erupted, roads were blocked, and rumors spread that the murders were a hate crime.
“It mek no sense,” my mother said, shaking her head. “But once people start talkin’, is like de whole country catch fire. People couldn’t see past de race.”
The murder of Haresh Singh further deepened the racial and political divides. A confession revealed that Haresh had been killed by individuals seeking revenge for Joel and Isaiah’s deaths. This cycle of violence highlighted the racial tensions that have plagued our country since independence, exacerbated by a volatile political atmosphere. Earlier that year, the delayed 2020 election results had already fueled mistrust and division. The murders and subsequent unrest became a flashpoint, exposing the fragility of our national unity.
“After de elections, people were already on edge,” my mother added. “But after what happen to Joel and Isaiah, and then to Haresh, it just feel like the country break in two.”
Appeals for Justice
Despite promises from President Irfaan Ali that “no stone would be left unturned,” the investigations into the Henry boys’ murders have yielded little progress. Appeals from their families and efforts by the Guyana Human Rights Association and their lead attorney, Nigel Hughes, to involve international forensic experts were denied. The lack of transparency and accountability has left the families and the public disheartened.
Adding to the families’ grief, Joel and Isaiah’s relatives were also arrested and imprisoned in connection with Haresh Singh’s murder, further straining their already devastated communities. The government provided no psychosocial support to the grieving families, leaving NGOs and concerned citizens to step in.
Three years later, the pain only deepened with the sudden deaths of their mothers. Isaiah’s mom, Patricia, passed away from a heart attack on October 18, 2022, and Joel’s mom, Gale, died from a ruptured blood vessel on November 10, 2023. Both women had been fighting tirelessly for justice for their sons and were left broken by the lack of resolution.
Reflection
Listening to my mother, I couldn’t help but think of the stories my grandfather used to tell me about the protests and injustices he had lived through—stories of racism and political tension that stretched back to when Guyana gained independence. Those stories always felt like they belonged to another time, another world. But now, here I was, living through it too, watching the same divisions unfold.
The murders of Joel and Isaiah Henry, and the subsequent killing of Haresh Singh, weren’t just about coconuts, or race, or politics—they were about all of it. They exposed the cracks in our community that had been there all along, even if we didn’t want to see them. The protests, looting, and violence that followed only fueled the hatred further, harming innocent people and businesses in the process.
Yet, as I reflect now, I can also see how the country has begun to heal. Though the scars remain, efforts have been made to foster dialogue and unity. People are starting to speak out against the divisions and demand accountability in ways that promote peace. It’s a slow process, but it gives me hope that we can learn from these tragedies and build a future where such horrors are not repeated.
Years later, we still don’t have all the answers about what happened. But what stays with me is how much this tragedy shook our village—and how it forced us all to confront the divisions we’d rather not see. For my mother, the tragedy was personal. Joel wasn’t just a headline to her. He was a little boy she’d taught, someone she’d watched grow up. And for me, even though I barely remembered him, his death made me realize how fragile our sense of safety really was.
The protests, the violence, the political unrest—it felt like history repeating itself. Only this time, it wasn’t my grandfather telling the stories. It was me living them, alongside my mother.