作者： admin

After nearly 20 years of legal uncertainty and relentless community advocacy, 35 long-time residents of Bozine Town officially received property deeds to their land on Wednesday, closing a chapter of fear and uncertainty that disrupted generations of families who built their homes on the contested ground. For many of the beneficiaries, the historic milestone came too late for the loved ones who led the early fight for ownership and spent years organizing resistance before their deaths.

The root of the decades-long dispute stretches back to a 2004 court ruling that upended decades of assumed ownership for Bozine Town residents. The ruling validated a ownership claim from Harold Road Land Development Company (LANDCO), which ordered hundreds of families to vacate their properties within 14 days or face immediate eviction proceedings. Overnight, households that had lived on and developed the land for generations suddenly found their most valuable asset at risk of seizure.

Seventy-six-year-old Ellen Daniels, one of the residents who received her deed at Wednesday’s official ceremony, described the moment as surreal after so many years of disappointment. Daniels’ husband, who spent years organizing fellow residents and fundraising for legal costs, died before he could see the dispute resolved. “Just trying to digest it,” Daniels said, holding the official document that confirmed her ownership. “You got it in your hand but you’re trying to say to yourself, ‘Is it really happening? Is it true?’ Because you know it’s here, but you’re still asking yourself these questions. I’m just so excited because you always wonder if it’s going to really happen after so many disappointments.”

By Daniels’ estimate, roughly 75 percent of the original Bozine Town residents abandoned their properties and relocated after the 2004 ruling, worn down by the constant threat of displacement. The remaining residents banded together, staging public protests, pooling whatever funds they could spare to cover legal fees, and holding community fundraisers to sustain their multi-year legal battle. Even as they continued to maintain their homes and properties through the uncertainty, residents were unable to access the full rights of legal ownership, such as refinancing or passing land to heirs through formal title.

Multiple consecutive national administrations prioritized resolving the dispute after it emerged in 2004. Housing Minister Keith Bell explained that the former Christie administration first intervened in 2005, issuing a formal guarantee that no residents would be forcibly displaced from their homes. In 2012, the Ingraham government finalized a land swap agreement, trading 34 acres of the contested Bozine Town holding for Crown Land located in Abaco, setting the framework to eventually transfer individual plots to resident ownership. The subsequent Minnis administration continued advancing the process, and the current Davis administration finalized the legal steps to issue individual deeds earlier this year.

“We cannot talk seriously about home ownership without dealing with ownership of the land beneath the home,” Bell told attendees at Wednesday’s ceremony. “We cannot talk about generational wealth if one generation cannot securely pass property to the next.” Bell framed the resolution of the Bozine Town dispute as a key early milestone of the Davis administration’s broader national land reform agenda.

For 89-year-old Adline Burrows, the deed fulfills a dream her late husband spent decades pursuing after he built the family home decades ago while she resided in Cat Island. Her daughter, 54-year-old Adline Burrows-Mott, who grew up in the home, recalled the constant anxiety that followed the 2004 ruling. “It was very frustrating, very frustrating in that time,” Burrows-Mott said. “My dad, everybody was fighting, trying to get the property sorted and all of that. But thank God we got it through today.” She also recalled the community’s early years, before basic infrastructure was installed, when residents carried water uphill to their homes.

Sixty-two-year-old Eleanor Patricia Archerdean, who has lived in her family’s Bozine Town home for more than 55 years, inherited the fight from her parents, who passed the property to her in their will before their deaths. “When they pass on and my parents always leave will to me, so I was able to, you know, get in the fight and continue to push for getting this done,” she said.

Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis told ceremony attendees that the resolution of the dispute underscored the urgent need for national land reform, adding that decades of uncertainty had finally been replaced with long-term security. “For years, you’ve lived with uncertainty over land that has been your home. You built your houses here, you built relationships here, and you raised your families here, and you watched generations grow up here,” Davis said. He noted that while multiple prior governments worked to address the issue, the current administration had finally crossed the finish line to deliver title to residents.

Garden Hills MP Mario Bowleg emphasized that the milestone also honors the many residents who fought for ownership but died before they could receive their deeds. “We remember them today with great respect and gratitude. Their hopes, sacrifices, dreams were a part of the journey that brought us here today,” Bowleg said. “Today, that long-awaited day has arrived.”

A multi-day power outage that stretched from Wednesday into Thursday delivered a sharp blow to Nassau’s key tourism sector, forcing dozens of downtown businesses to close or operate under strained conditions, cutting short tourist visits and causing thousands of dollars in lost revenue for local vendors. The outage impacted heavily trafficked areas including Shirley Street and East Street Hill, a core hub for cruise ship passengers coming ashore to shop and dine. Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), the territory’s main electricity provider, announced that technicians first detected the fault via routine monitoring, but uncovered an unexpected secondary equipment failure while attempting to reroute power through the Arawak Cay substation. Restoration work got underway shortly after noon Thursday, with an initial estimate of five to six hours needed to fully restore service. BPL later updated the public on ongoing progress and issued a formal apology for the widespread disruption. But on the ground, the impacts were felt almost immediately, with visitors and business owners alike grappling with sweltering summer temperatures amid lost air conditioning. A Tribune reporter on site observed tourists browsing dimly lit retail stores, many visibly perspiring in the heat, while retail staff relied on small portable fans to stay cool. For businesses without backup generators, processing card payments became nearly impossible, turning away countless potential sales. Amado, a Royal Caribbean cruise passenger from Florida who has visited The Bahamas roughly five times previously, said the oppressive heat and lost power pushed him to cut his shore excursion short and return to his ship earlier than planned. “We don’t want to explore so much,” he explained. “It’s so hot, you know, uncomfortable.” He added that he had never encountered such widespread service disruptions during past trips, arguing that infrastructure should be reliable enough to accommodate the constant stream of tourists arriving via cruise ships. “There has to be some kind of decency,” he said. “There’s so many tourists over here, all these cruise ships. You should think that you know there will be resources for this.” Jay, another cruise passenger from Michigan, said she was less personally inconvenienced by the outage, but expressed sympathy for local residents who have dealt with repeated power failures across the island. “You guys work hard and deserve it,” she said. Many visitors echoed the frustration, noting the outage directly impacted how much they were willing to spend during their time ashore. One tourist said she wished her cruise line had been aware of the blackout and warned her family before they disembarked. “It’s disappointing because it’s hot and it was already hot getting off the ship,” she said. “We were thinking we were going to be shopping in the cool so it was a big disappointment.” For local business owners, the disruption translated directly to tangible financial losses. At Luryx, a downtown retail store, assistant manager Colebrooke estimated the outage cost the business roughly $5,000 in lost sales. Like many other small vendors in the area, Luryx does not have a backup generator, and only stayed open because a personal power bank kept the store’s wireless credit card terminal operational. “The only thing I would say to BPL is these are modern times and we shouldn’t be living like this,” Colebrooke said. “Our business should not be operating like this.” She emphasized that the damage extends beyond one day of lost sales, noting that the outages leave a negative impression on the thousands of tourists that pass through downtown Nassau daily when cruise ships are in port. “We have cruise ships in the port every day even if it’s just one so could you imagine the impact it is having,” she said. “The tourists are going to talk about it because they’re coming in here asking us what happened.” Employees at local souvenir shops echoed the complaint, noting that lost card access cost them significant commission income, as most tourists do not carry large amounts of cash. “The only way we can only take funds if it’s cash,” one employee said. “It’s a big problem because you know most tourists come with their card. They cost us a lot of money this morning because they have a lot of ships out there that brings us our income.” Some businesses that chose to close early faced additional unexpected costs, with some reporting paying more than $100 to have staff come in to lower security shutters for the day. Multiple businesses also reported damage to their private backup generators during the outage, adding to repair costs. The Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant was one of the establishments forced to close entirely, and staff had to discard all perishable food items to prevent spoilage in the heat. The outage is the latest in a string of service failures for BPL this summer, a period marked by repeated blackouts, scheduled load shedding, and growing anger from both residents and business owners over inconsistent service. BPL has defended its performance, attributing the recent spate of outages to a combination of system-wide faults and excessive demand driven by record high temperatures, including cable failures, overloaded transformers, tripped breakers and feeders, damaged power lines, and higher than usual electricity consumption across the grid.

Nearly a decade after a 2016 police shooting left a 22-year-old man permanently paralyzed, a Bahamian court has approved an $80,000 emergency interim payment to cover urgent life-saving medical care he requires as his final damages claim remains pending.

Thorne Clarke, now a working professional whose mobility has been impaired from the sternum down following the shooting, recently developed a life-threatening stage four pressure ulcer on his right buttock that has become infected, requiring immediate surgical intervention. The emergency payment, ordered by Justice Camille Darville Gomez, comes after Clarke’s legal team argued he could not cover the mounting out-of-pocket medical costs on his own.

The conflicting accounts of the 2016 incident have never been fully resolved. Police maintained at the time that officers responded to a report of a suspicious individual, surrounded Clarke’s Nissan vehicle after he attempted to drive away, and opened fire only when Clarke tried to knock down an officer who feared for his life. Clarke has repeatedly disputed this narrative: he claims he complied with initial orders to stop, only began moving after receiving no explanation for the police stop, and had traveled less than 10 feet when officers opened fire. He also denies attempting to harm any officer, and alleges that after shooting him, police dragged him from his crashed vehicle (which hit a wall after he lost control of his legs following the injury), handcuffed him, and assaulted him while he was incapacitated. Police have stood by their original account of the shooting.

Clarke launched his civil lawsuit against the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General in May 2018, and a default judgment was entered against the defense in September 2019 after they failed to enter a plea. The remaining dispute centers entirely on the total amount of damages Clarke should receive: he is seeking $2.064 million in compensation, while the defense values the claim at just over $539,000, including more than $348,000 for pain and suffering linked to his permanent paraplegia, loss of bladder and bowel function, and loss of sexual sensation. A damages assessment hearing concluded in May 2025 before Assistant Registrar Jonathan Deal, but a final ruling has not yet been issued.

In the months leading up to the interim payment application, Clarke’s health declined sharply. The pressure ulcer, a common and dangerous complication for people with long-term paraplegia, grew to 6 centimeters by 4 centimeters and became infected in late April, triggering a high fever and impaired speech that required a nine-day admission to Princess Margaret Hospital. Treating physician Dr. Vernard McPhee, who is caring for Clarke at the New Hope Medical Center for Advanced Wound Care, recommended urgent surgery to close the wound, eliminate a MRSA infection, and reduce the risk of life-threatening further complications. The procedure involves vacuum-assisted wound closure, debridement, suturing, and potentially reconstructive gluteal flap surgery, with an estimated cost of $57,488.32. Clarke already carries an outstanding $11,358.89 medical bill from prior treatment of the bedsore, and has paid all costs out of pocket to date, struggling to cover recurring expenses for medical equipment, care labor, and medication.

To accommodate his condition, Clarke now leaves work daily at 2 p.m., since prolonged sitting increases his infection risk. He told the court the uncertainty around his medical care has left him struggling with anxiety about losing his job, recurring infection, and repeated hospitalizations. His legal team initially requested $200,000 in interim funds, later reducing the request to $100,000 during a second court hearing.

The defense opposed the application, arguing that with the damages assessment already complete and a ruling pending, an interim payment would create a risk of overpayment that could not be recovered later, and amounted to procedural overreach. Justice Darville Gomez rejected this argument, noting that Bahamian Civil Procedure Rules explicitly allow interim payment applications “at any time” regardless of whether the damages assessment process has concluded.

At the same time, the judge acknowledged the need for caution to avoid overpayment and an unnecessary second assessment of damages. Using the defense’s own $539,250.03 valuation as a conservative baseline for the final award, the judge found that $80,000 – equivalent to roughly 14% of the defense’s proposed total, compared to the 18% that $100,000 would represent – struck the appropriate balance. This amount covers the projected surgical cost and outstanding bills, while creating a buffer against the risk of overpayment that the defense highlighted. The judge also noted that the initial surgical cost estimate could rise if additional treatment is needed, so the payment does not need to match the estimate exactly.

“I am therefore satisfied that $80,000.00 is no more than a reasonable proportion of the likely final judgment,” the justice wrote in her ruling, “and that it is just to exercise the discretion in the Claimant’s favour.” The $80,000 will be deducted from Clarke’s final damage award, and the defense has also been ordered to cover Clarke’s legal costs for the interim payment application. Justice Darville Gomez emphasized that the ruling does not predetermine the size of Clarke’s final compensation, and leaves Assistant Registrar Deal’s pending damages ruling entirely unaffected.