标签： Bahamas

A devastating tragedy has shaken the community of Nassau, Bahamas, after a 16-year-old high school senior lost his life in a drowning accident at a local canal over the weekend, cutting short a life full of promise just days before his birthday and months before his graduation.

Davontae Fleurimar, a 12th-grade student at Royal Preparatory Academy, was swimming with three friends at the waterway behind the gated South Sea Estates community off Bacardi Road when the incident unfolded on Sunday afternoon. According to local law enforcement, authorities received the first report of a missing swimmer at approximately 4 p.m. Witness accounts told officers that the group of four young men, ranging in age from 16 to 19, had been swimming just south of the development when a strong current pulled Fleurimar into distress. One member of the group attempted a risky rescue, but was unable to reach him safely before the teenager disappeared under the water.

Emergency responders immediately launched a large-scale search operation: local police coordinated with the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, which dispatched a patrol vessel, aerial drone support, and a team of specialized divers to comb the stretch of canal. After nearly three hours of relentless searching, Fleurimar’s unresponsive body was recovered at around 7:30 p.m. roughly 40 yards from the South Sea Estates southwestern shore.

The tragedy comes just five days before what would have been Fleurimar’s 17th birthday, and just a few months before he was set to cross the graduation stage in June. For his family, the sudden loss has left an unfillable void that they are still struggling to comprehend.

Ygonnia Blanc, Fleurimar’s aunt who acted as a second mother to him and even gave him his name, spoke publicly about the teenager’s bright character. She described Davontae as a polite, kind-hearted, and driven young man who started working after-school jobs at a local grocery store and construction sites from an early age to earn his own income. “Even at his young age he was done figuring his life out,” Blanc said, “and that’s what make me even love him more.”

Blanc also shared that Fleurimar’s mother had worked tirelessly through hardship to give her son every opportunity for a better life, and that the entire family remains in shock. When Fleurimar’s mother identified her son’s body at the local morgue the day after the accident, she could only scream through her grief: “We were so close Vontae.” When asked how the family was holding up in the days after the tragedy, Blanc choked up through tears, saying, “He only 16. He ain’t live half his life yet.” Fleurimar was an avid swimmer who often visited the canal, a detail that makes his accidental death even more devastating for his loved ones.

Royal Preparatory Academy, Fleurimar’s school, released an official statement mourning his passing and honoring his memory. The institution shared an image of his basketball jersey to acknowledge his love for the sport, and remembered the joy he brought to campus. “As we grieve this heartbreaking loss, we remember the laughter, the jokes, and all the special moments we shared. He will be deeply missed and forever remembered,” the statement read. The school closed its remarks by asking for prayers of strength and comfort for Fleurimar’s family, friends, classmates, and all those impacted by his death.

A shocking violent crime that rocked the Bahamas in late 2024 has reached its legal conclusion, with perpetrator Javon Forbes sentenced to 39 years in prison behind bars — a punishment that left some of victim Vernencha Butler’s family dissatisfied, arguing it did not fit the brutality of his offenses.

The 27-year-old defendant pleaded guilty to three separate charges — murder, rape, and burglary — during a March arraignment, admitting his actions to law enforcement shortly after the November 2022 attack. On Friday, Justice Renae McKay handed down concurrent sentences of 39 years for murder, 25 years for rape, and 20 years for burglary, resulting in a total effective 39-year custodial term. After the verdict was read, Forbes, dressed in a plain white shirt and bound in shackles and handcuffs, was escorted out of the courtroom by armed police officers.

Butler, a 72-year-old seamstress and mother of three, had already endured an extraordinary series of hardships in the year leading up to her death. She had survived a battle with breast cancer only to lose her father and two sisters within 12 months, and was even unable to attend the January funeral of her first sister because she was recovering from a medical procedure. The November 22 birthday dinner for her 75-year-old elder sister was meant to be a rare moment of joy for the grieving family. Relatives dropped Butler off at her Ross Corner apartment, where she lived with her son, at around 11 p.m. that night; her final known act was a phone call to her sister confirming she had arrived home safely.

Forbes, who was 25 at the time of the killing, had been released from prison just eight months earlier, in March 2024, after serving a sentence for prior vagrancy and housebreaking convictions. Security camera footage captured him wandering the neighborhood shirtless and barefoot, loitering outside a local restaurant and bar, before the attack. Investigators confirmed he appeared to be under the influence of an illegal drug when he targeted Butler’s home, and he later admitted he was high on MDMA, commonly known as molly, when he climbed through an unlocked front room window to gain entry.

Three hours after Butler was dropped off, her son and grandson returned home from a separate event, where her son had worked as a deejay. They found the usually unlocked deadbolt bolted from inside. After forcing the lock open, they made a horrifying discovery: Butler’s undressed body lying on the living room floor, while a naked Forbes sat calmly in her bedroom. The two men physically detained Forbes before a neighbor was alerted for help. Next-door resident Angela Curry recalled being woken by loud banging, when Butler’s grandson frantically told her: “Grammy dead, and one man was inside raping her.”

While family members initially saw no obvious external trauma, an autopsy confirmed Butler had been sexually assaulted, suffered severe internal injuries, and died from asphyxia by strangulation. The murder was the 111th homicide recorded in the Bahamas that year, coming just days after the discovery of the body of 12-year-old schoolgirl Adriel Moxey. The back-to-back brutal slayings sent shockwaves across the small island nation and reignited long-simmering public demands to reinstate capital punishment, which has not been used in the country for decades.

Then-Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander, who noted the victim’s family roots in San Salvador, said the case affected him personally. Investigators also revealed a troubling detail: multiple witnesses observed Forbes loitering in the neighborhood the night of the attack, but none contacted law enforcement to report the suspicious activity. For neighbors, the attack shattered the sense of safety in the previously quiet two-storey apartment complex. Longtime resident Curry said the community had never experienced such violence before, and she is now pushing the property owner to install additional outdoor lighting, security cameras, and window bars to prevent similar attacks. “It’s puzzling how he got in here,” Curry said, adding that she now feels constant fear living in her home.

Speaking in the days after the killing, Butler’s nephew Sherwin Johnson said the family had never endured such trauma and could barely process the shock. His grandmother, Butler’s elder sister whose birthday celebration they had just attended, has been unable to cope with the grief. “I’m processing a lot of anger and hurt, you know,” Johnson said at the time. “Because it wasn’t like she was sick. It wasn’t like it was a car accident or anything.” Johnson has repeatedly stated that Forbes deserved the death penalty for his crime, a view shared by other members of the family who echoed that sentiment after Friday’s sentencing.

When Forbes was first arraigned days after the murder, he appeared in court with bandages covering both arms. His defense attorney Mark Rolle told the court that other detainees at the Grove Police Station had threatened Forbes, and he had already been assaulted before being placed in protective isolation. “He says he was told what will happen when he arrives at the prison,” Rolle told the court. Assistant Chief Magistrate Carolyn Vogt-Evans subsequently ordered that Forbes be held in isolation for his own safety throughout his detention at the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services, an order that remains in place.

Outside the courthouse after Friday’s sentencing, Butler’s family spoke through tears, saying they felt a measure of relief that the long, painful legal process had finally concluded with a guilty finding. Still, several family members reiterated their view that 39 years was not a harsh enough sentence for the brutal killing of the soft-spoken, beloved grandmother, who is survived by her three children.

Eleuthera, a popular island in The Bahamas, is grappling with two serious traffic accidents that occurred just 24 hours apart, leaving one person dead and another clinging to life, renewing longstanding concerns about the safety of the island’s road infrastructure.

On Saturday, 59-year-old Allan Hilton, who relocated to Eleutherra from Nassau about three years ago, lost his life after his car collided with a utility pole on Queen’s Highway, just north of Hatchet Bay. Police received reports of the crash shortly before 4:20 p.m. When first responders arrived at the scene, they found Hilton trapped inside his extensively damaged burgundy Nissan Note, with license plate EL9907. He was already struggling to breathe, and even though a local physician was summoned immediately to provide emergency care, Hilton was pronounced dead at the crash site. Law enforcement officials have since opened a formal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collision.

The fatal crash came just one day after a separate accident left another Eleuthera resident, Garaze Hanna, severely injured. Hanna, who works as a housekeeper and driver at The Cove Eleuthera hotel, lost control of his vehicle Friday, causing it to swerve off the roadway. He had to be airlifted to a medical facility in New Providence for urgent care. A local witness who saw the crash aftermath described the scene as “really, really bad,” and his co-worker Bekera Taylor told reporters that Hanna remains “still fighting for his life.”

Taylor, who is familiar with both victims and their families, shared new details about Hilton’s life on the island. She confirmed that Hilton had recently returned to work on a construction project with international musician and artist Lenny Kravitz, after doing other construction and odd jobs across Eleuthera. Hilton had moved to the island with his mother, who still resides in the Rainbow area, and had become a well-known community member in regions including James Cistern and Rainbow. Taylor extended her sincere condolences to Hilton’s family following his passing.

As of Saturday, official police have not released any detailed public report on Friday’s crash involving Hanna. Sergeant Newbold, an Eleuthera-based law enforcement officer, confirmed that the crash took place but declined to share any additional information. Attempts to reach press liaison officer Leonard Ramsey for comment on both crashes were unsuccessful.

The back-to-back accidents have reignited longstanding complaints about dangerous road conditions on the island. Taylor, echoing the concerns of many local residents, pointed out that unaddressed potholes have reappeared across many roadways and that there is insufficient street lighting for after-dark travel. “Well, these roads don’t play,” she emphasized, highlighting the persistent risk they pose to drivers.

With Hilton’s death, the total number of traffic-related fatalities recorded on Eleuthera this year has risen to approximately five, a figure that community members say underscores the urgent need for infrastructure improvements to prevent future loss of life.

A quiet, close-knit community in Nassau is grappling with grief after a fatal shooting that claimed the life of a beloved local father, leaving another man critically injured and renewing calls to curb violent crime.

On Wednesday night, 42-year-old Renaldo Curry was killed in a sudden attack by two masked gunmen who opened fire on a group of people gathered near a food outlet on John Road — the same street where Curry had lived his entire life. According to police details, the two attackers approached the group on a scooter from the direction of Market Street, fired multiple shots, then fled west toward Baillou Hill Road. Curry was struck multiple times and pronounced dead at the scene, while a 22-year-old man who was also shot in the lower back was rushed to a local hospital for emergency surgery, where he remains in critical condition as of the latest updates.

Curry’s sister, Desiree Curry, told reporters that the family is convinced his death was nothing more than a tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She emphasized that Curry never had any ties to criminal activity, gang conflicts or known threats, and that he was an entirely innocent victim of random violence. “We just need them to be held accountable,” Ms. Curry said in an interview. “He’s an innocent man. They took him from his family, his kids.”

Curry, a lifelong resident of John Road who was born and raised in the neighborhood, was known for stopping to chat with childhood friends and neighbors whenever he was out. A jack-of-all-trades, he worked both as a security guard and a part-time carpenter, but what mattered most to him was his role as a devoted father to his two sons, aged 14 and 4. Ms. Curry described her brother as filling both a maternal and paternal role for his children: he often had the boys live with him, helped them with schoolwork, and made sure all their needs were always met. “He loved those boys; those two boys were his heart,” Ms. Curry said, adding that the children are completely devastated by their father’s sudden death.

The tragedy unfolded quickly: Ms. Curry was at work when she started getting missed calls from family members. A nephew told her her brother had been killed, another confirmed he had been shot, and she only learned the full extent of the fatal shooting when she arrived back at the family home. Ms. Curry, one of six siblings raised closely by their mother, said the entire family remains tightly bonded as adults. She spoke with her brother almost every day through the family group chat, often sharing Bible verses and words of encouragement with him, and their last conversation took place just the day before the shooting, on Tuesday. On the day he died, Curry had spent much of the day visiting with relatives before picking up his younger son from school, Ms. Curry said.

Authorities were alerted to the shooting just after 11:30 p.m., when ShotSpotter acoustic gunfire detection technology registered multiple shots in the eastern portion of John Road. Responding officers found Curry unresponsive with multiple gunshot wounds, and emergency medical personnel later confirmed he had no vital signs upon arrival.

The family is still struggling to process the sudden loss of a man who had been part of their lives for more than 40 years. Ms. Curry said her brother should be remembered as the calm, quiet, loving, caring and supportive person everyone in the community knew him to be. “He loved to sing. He loved to dance, and that’s what he was. He was happy,” she said.

Ms. Curry also voiced a broader fear about the random nature of the attack, noting that it could have easily claimed the life of anyone else — including one of her brother’s children, who could have been walking with him when he stopped near the food outlet that night. “It could have been somebody else. It could have been anybody,” she said. “Life is just so unfair, and the senseless killing has to stop. It has to stop.”

For Thorne Clarke, a 32-year-old man left permanently paralyzed and wheelchair-dependent by a 2016 police shooting, a nearly $1 million civil damages award handed down last month marks a legal milestone – but not closure. Seven years after a Bahamian court entered a default judgment against the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General for failing to file a defense in his civil lawsuit, Clarke has finally been awarded $941,893.91 in compensation for his life-altering injuries. Yet in an interview with The Tribune, Clarke revealed he has never received an apology from law enforcement, nor has he been given the identities of the officers involved in the shooting that changed his life forever.

The 2016 encounter that left Clarke paralyzed has never been fully clarified due to the state’s procedural default. Police have maintained that Clarke attempted to drive his vehicle into an officer during the incident, a claim Clarke has repeatedly and vehemently denied. Because the default judgment was entered before a full civil trial could examine conflicting testimony, no official factual findings have been issued on the circumstances of the shooting, and Clarke says he has not received any formal communication from police about the incident from 2016 to today.

Clarke says an official public apology would be far more than a symbolic gesture. It would, he argues, help repair eroded public trust between law enforcement and communities that have historically been harmed by unaccountable police conduct. While he expressed gratitude for the damages award, he emphasized that the sum falls far short of covering the lifelong costs of his paralysis – including ongoing medical care, adaptive equipment, accessible transportation, and home modifications. He added that a faster resolution would have allowed the funds to improve his quality of life much earlier, as he adapted to the permanent changes to his body.

The damages assessment was finalized by Assistant Registrar Jonathan Deal in a September 21 ruling. Clarke filed his lawsuit in 2018, originally seeking $2.064 million in compensation. He previously received an $80,000 interim payment to address urgent medical needs after he developed a severe pressure ulcer that required surgical intervention. As of Clarke’s recent interview, the surgery had not yet been scheduled, though he is making arrangements, and described his current overall health as “pretty good.” The $80,000 advance leaves an outstanding balance of $861,893.91 before applicable interest and legal fees are added.

The lifelong financial burden of Clarke’s disability is staggering, and many costs have already been covered out of pocket by his family. Clarke requires regular replacement of core adaptive supplies: the pressure relief cushions he uses to prevent additional ulcers cost more than $400 each and must be replaced regularly, and his wheelchair needs to be replaced every three to five years due to constant wear and mechanical failure. Without access to an accessible vehicle, he relies entirely on family and friends for transportation. The shooting also upended his family’s financial stability: his mother left her job to care for him in the years immediately after the incident and eventually closed her small business entirely, while his father came out of retirement to work longer hours to cover recurring medical and living expenses. The family has paid to install basic ramps and modify their bathroom to accommodate Clarke’s wheelchair, but many critical home accessibility modifications remain unfinished due to cost.

Emotionally, the first years after the shooting were an agonizing adjustment. Clarke fell into deep depression, struggled with unmanaged anger, and withdrew socially as he came to terms with lifelong paralysis. Today, however, he has found purpose through his work with the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, his employer, which has accommodated his disability by installing an on-site changing station. Though his condition sometimes requires him to leave work early, Clarke has turned his experience into advocacy: through his role, he meets many disabled people who lack even the limited resources and family support he has access to, and he now advocates for broader accessibility and systemic change.

Clarke plans to allocate the majority of his damages award to cover his ongoing disability-related needs. He hopes his high-profile case will push courts and government agencies to resolve life-changing injury claims far more quickly, and draw national attention to disabled Bahamians who have no damage awards or family resources to cover their basic needs. Beyond policy, he is calling on private businesses to reimagine accessibility, arguing that it is far more than just installing a single wheelchair ramp – it requires rethinking access to employment, public spaces, and basic community activities for all people with mobility disabilities.

“A lot of people ask me early on, you know, what do you do for fun or where do you go, and I normally respond with: ‘Where do you think I can go?’” he said. “We need to start treating accessibility as an essential rather than a luxury.”

A nearly 18-hour widespread power blackout across multiple communities in Central New Providence pushed a local family into a frantic race to source emergency generator fuel on Thursday, laying bare the life-disrupting and dangerous strain that sustained electricity failures place on low-income, elderly and medically vulnerable residents across the Bahamian island.

The outage first struck shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday, cutting electricity to residential areas that include Yellow Elder Gardens, Stapledon Gardens, Harold Road and Blue Hill Heights, before service was finally restored just before 11:30 a.m. Thursday. Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) attributed the unplanned outage to a fault in an overhead power line, and issued a formal apology for the disruption to daily life.

Beyond general inconvenience, the blackout forced multiple local education institutions — including Government High School, Tiny Tots Preschool and CW Sawyer Primary School — to dismiss students early, renewing sharp criticism from the country’s political opposition over the government’s failure to address systemic power infrastructure failures.

For families caring for homebound, medically dependent relatives, the extended outage created immediate, life-altering challenges. Barbara Wilson, a resident of the affected Stapledon Gardens neighborhood, spoke publicly to the Tribune about her family’s scramble to keep critical medical equipment running for her 86-year-old bedridden aunt, who has been completely immobile and nonverbal since suffering a major stroke more than two years ago. The elderly woman, who currently receives round-the-clock care from Wilson’s sister, relies on an adjustable electric bed to be repositioned for feeding, daily care and to prevent dangerous pressure ulcers, a complication she has already begun to develop.

While the family keeps a backup generator on hand for frequent outages, the unit ran out of fuel after service restoration was delayed far beyond the family’s early-morning restoration expectation. “Even if you prepare, there are no guarantees,” Wilson explained. “You can run out of fuel, your generator can break down, and while we recognize BPL deals with ongoing challenges, this level of disruption is not normal. There are far deeper problems plaguing our system than officials are admitting.” Wilson argued that the country’s persistent power crises stem from decades of underinvestment and neglect by successive national governments, and called for urgent, systemic repairs to prevent further harm to vulnerable residents.

Shanendon Cartwright, deputy leader of the opposition Free National Movement (FNM), echoed that criticism in a formal press statement Thursday, labeling repeated outages unacceptable and arguing the ongoing power crisis is paralyzing the Bahamas’ public education system. Cartwright called on the national government to develop formal contingency protocols to support schools during unexpected electricity failures, noting that both students and educators deserve far better than repeated disruptions to learning. “The government must stop offering excuses and start delivering tangible solutions,” Cartwright said.

Sinymae Capron, executive director of Good Samaritan’s Senior Citizen Homes, shared that the facility avoided the worst outcomes during this most recent outage thanks to unseasonably cool overnight temperatures Wednesday, which meant residents did not suffer through sweltering heat without air conditioning. Even so, Capron emphasized that repeated power outages remain a deeply concerning threat to senior care facilities, noting that summer outages are particularly dangerous for elderly residents with health complications.

Thursday’s prolonged disruption comes as public anxiety over the reliability of New Providence’s entire electricity grid continues to grow, following a summer marked by repeated unplanned outages and mandatory rolling load shedding. BPL and the Bahamas Grid Company (BGC) have pinned the recent string of outages on a range of overlapping issues, from aging infrastructure failures including damaged cables, overloaded transformers and tripped circuit breakers, to soaring summer temperatures that drive higher-than-expected residential energy demand.

Last month, BGC Chief Executive Officer Dareo McKenzie announced a plan to address systemic gaps in grid maintenance and repair: the agency intends to expand its internal workforce and leverage existing international partnerships to bring in additional skilled lineworkers to address backlogged repairs to both overhead and underground power infrastructure over the next eight to 10 weeks.