标签： Trinidad and Tobago

Since the start of 2024, Trinidad and Tobago has recorded 20 fatalities resulting from police use of force, with more than two-thirds of those deaths occurring in the 12 weeks following the implementation of a national state of emergency (SoE) that took effect on March 3. As of May 30, the death toll from police-involved shootings during the emergency period stands at 14, a count that has climbed steadily even as multiple families of deceased suspects have publicly disputed official police accounts of the incidents and demanded transparent, independent probes into the killings.

Starting Monday, thousands of daily commuters across Trinidad and Tobago are bracing for significant travel disruptions, as maxi-taxi operators from all six national routes have launched a three-day work stoppage framed as a “rest and reflection” action to push for long-delayed government action on decades of unresolved industry issues.

Vernell Carter, Assistant Secretary of the Association of Maxi Taxi Trinidad and Tobago (AMTTT), confirmed the industrial action last week, noting it will run through Wednesday. Carter added that the strike will be called off immediately only if the government delivers formal documentation laying out a clear, reasonable timeline to address the full list of operator demands. Approximately 5,000 maxi-taxis provide core public transport across the twin-island nation, meaning the shutdown will leave tens of thousands of workers, students and daily travelers without their regular transport option, and place extra strain on the few remaining operating transit services.

During the three-day action, AMTTT executive members will gather at the Route Two (red band) compound at Port of Spain’s City Gate and the Route One (yellow band) compound on South Quay, with drivers from all other routes invited to attend the organized gathering. Carter highlighted that one core demand is the construction of dedicated transit hubs for every maxi-taxi route, a need that has gone unmet for smaller routes for years. “The other routes don’t have a hub to gather in, to sit down and rest and reflect, so they would be up on our side between Route One and Route Two,” Carter explained, noting the existing facilities offer amenities including a cafe and television that will accommodate visiting drivers throughout the action.

Operators have laid out a broad set of long-standing grievances that have prompted the shutdown. Top concerns include rampant illegal competition from unlicensed “PH” vehicles and unauthorised white buses that operate on routes legally reserved for maxi-taxis. Operators have also been pushing since 2021 to raise the maxi-taxi speed limit from 65 km/h to 80 km/h, and are calling for clear, standardized regulations for transferring public service vehicle licences in cases of owner death, serious illness, amnesty programmes and open transfers. Additional demands include: the upgrade and improved management of maxi-taxi stands and dedicated hubs across all routes; full payment of outstanding dues owed to maxi-taxi operators that provide contracted school transport services; clearly marked pick-up and drop-off zones, particularly in the capital Port of Spain; permission for maxi-taxis to use overpasses and priority routes currently restricted to Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) buses; revised, more accessible National Insurance contribution arrangements for self-employed operators; clear legal guidelines for on-board radio communication systems; enhanced safety and security measures for both drivers and passengers during overnight trips; and simplified application processes for intra-city service passes.

The timing of the strike has sparked urgent concern from education stakeholders, as the action coincides with ongoing CSEC and CAPE examinations for secondary school students. Crystal Ashe, President of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), said the shutdown poses major disruptions for daily commuting teachers and exam-taking students. “Our teachers and students use this service daily and it will definitely impact on them,” Ashe said, noting that parents of exam candidates will need to make alternate travel arrangements at short notice.

Ashe also confirmed that TTUTA supports operators’ demand for immediate payment of $10 million in outstanding school transport dues, noting that operators have only received two weeks of payment so far this year – a parallel to the delayed backpay owed to many public school educators. “TTUTA asks that the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education get their house in order and pay all persons their outstanding monies immediately. Citizens cannot take promises to the groceries and financial institutions,” Ashe said, adding that he remains hopeful that productive negotiation between the government and operators can still deliver a positive resolution.

Walter Stewart, President of the National Parent-Teacher Association (NPTA), echoed that concern, saying the strike deeply worries parent leaders and has prompted the association to call for a pause in industrial action during the critical exam period. “The NPTA fully acknowledges and respects the rights of maxi-taxi operators to pursue legitimate avenues to address their challenges relating to school maxi-taxi payments, hub development revitalisation and management, policy guidelines on [licence] transfers and other concerns which have persisted across successive administrations,” Stewart said. However, he added, “Our students have toiled and prepared diligently for these exams and any disruption has the potential to cause unnecessary anxiety, uncertainty, disadvantage and inequity.”

Stewart urged the government to immediately roll out contingency transport plans to ensure affected students can reach their exam centres on time, and called on both sides to enter urgent good-faith negotiations to resolve the outstanding issues that led to the strike.

All six color-coded maxi-taxi routes are participating in the three-day action: red band (Route Two), the largest route with roughly 2,000 vehicles serving the Eastern Main Road and Priority Bus Route between Port of Spain, Arima and Sangre Grande; yellow band (Route One) serving Port of Spain, St James, Carenage, Chaguaramas, Diego Martin and Petit Valley; green band connecting Port of Spain, Central Trinidad and South Trinidad through Chaguanas, Couva and San Fernando; black band serving the route from San Fernando through Princes Town to Mayaro; brown band running from San Fernando to La Romaine, Siparia, Penal, Cedros and Point Fortin; and blue band, which operates exclusively across Tobago.

A grassroots movement demanding accountability for the deaths of Kaia Sealy and Joshua Samaroo is moving forward with plans for a nationwide civil society shutdown on June 5, organizers confirm, despite increased government restrictions and official pushback under a national state of emergency. Leading demonstration organizer Alyssa Phillip has remained unbowed by authorities’ recent efforts to curb public action, including the creation of official no-protest zones by police and her own recent arrest while protesting.

Phillip was taken into custody last Wednesday during a demonstration held outside the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office in Port of Spain, and she is set to appear before a local magistrate to face her charges on the same day she spoke to reporters for this update. In a telephone interview, Phillip made clear that the push for justice has not been silenced by law enforcement action, noting that the movement has adapted its tactics to meet growing restrictions. A silent gathering held in St. James this past Friday, for example, was intentionally structured to symbolize the widespread silence of community members who have not yet spoken out against the injustices at the heart of the campaign.

The core demand of the movement stretches far beyond the individual cases of Sealy and Samaroo, Phillip explained. At its root, the campaign is a fight for fundamental fairness and public trust in Trinidad and Tobago’s national institutions, most notably the country’s justice system. To that end, the June 5 shutdown calls on all members of the national community to opt out of work, school and all routine public activities, and to share their participation on social media to build momentum. This peaceful, low-risk approach was specifically designed to accommodate those who fear repercussions from joining in-person public demonstrations, Phillip added, opening participation to a far broader cross-section of the public.

Phillip also addressed recent public comments from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, noting that while she holds deep personal respect for the Prime Minister, the movement has been disappointed by what she describes as a lack of meaningful empathy and action on the Sealy case. Most critically, the organization has pushed back hard against the Prime Minister’s recent allegations that the movement has ties to violent criminal activity. Persad-Bissessar recently claimed that opposition lawmakers, union leaders, entertainers and movement supporters were actually backing a plot to unite violent criminal gangs against law enforcement and law-abiding citizens. Those claims grew out of a circulating video that called on rival gangs to end their internal conflicts to push back against a systemic policy of political divide and rule, not to target civilian or state institutions.

In her response, Phillip flatly rejected all claims of gang affiliation for the movement’s leading activists, emphasizing that all residents hold a fundamental democratic right to speak out on public injustice and organize peaceful protest. She also closed the interview by offering public thanks to the high-profile artists who have already added their voices to the movement, including popular soca performer Nailah Blackman, whose public support has helped bring national attention to the campaign’s demands.

On the 181st anniversary of the first arrival of East Indian indentured laborers to Trinidad, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar led national commemorations that blended historical reflection, personal heritage, and a celebration of Trinidad and Tobago’s multi-ethnic national identity.

The day’s events kicked off with a vivid historical re-enactment at Penal’s Heritage Dam, where Persad-Bissessar stepped aboard a full-scale replica of the *Fatel Razack* – the sailing vessel that carried the first group of indentured workers to Trinidad and Tobago on May 30, 1845, marking the start of 72 years of Indian indentureship in the country. After the landing re-creation, the Prime Minister led a public procession to the Petrotrin grounds, where hundreds of attendees gathered despite rainy weather to mark Indian Arrival Day.

Speaking to the assembled crowd, which included members of the foreign Diplomatic Corps and Trinidad and Tobago Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro, Persad-Bissessar wove the national history of indentureship together with her own family story. A 31-year incumbent representing the Siparia constituency in south Trinidad, where many descendants of indentured workers settled, she recalled her childhood growing up in Penal and shared the journey of her great-grandmother, Sumaria Seepersad, who traveled from Madras, India, to colonial Trinidad in the early 1880s.

For the Prime Minister, Indian Arrival Day is far more than a ceremonial holiday or a page from distant history. It is a living connection to the struggles and resilience of ancestors whose sacrifices shape modern Trinidad and Tobago to this day. “When we re-enact the long walk to departure ports, the boarding of the ships, and the crossing of the kala pani (dark waters), we are symbolically retracing the footsteps of our foreparents from another time, a journey once filled with fear, uncertainty, heartbreak, and sacrifice,” she explained.

Persad-Bissessar pulled back no punches in describing the exploitative, dehumanizing system that brought thousands of Indian villagers to Trinidad. Between 1845 and 1917, an estimated 144,000 indentured workers arrived in the country, recruited through a system she called effectively a form of modern human trafficking. Most were poor residents from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madras, many lured through deceptive promises into exploitative contracts. After leaving their homes and families forever, they survived dangerous transoceanic voyages only to face systemic discrimination, grueling working conditions on plantations that were barely an improvement over chattel slavery.

Sharing her great-grandmother’s story to illustrate the broader experience of the indentured generation, Persad-Bissessars recalled that 16-year-old Sumaria arrived in Trinidad with only a small traveler’s bundle, speaking no English, only Bhojpuri. Widowed at a young age, she raised her children alone in a small thatched cutya house, walking miles barefoot every day to work on sugar cane and cocoa plantations under the hot tropical sun. “Every morning, before sunrise, she got up and kept going, never realising that she and thousands like her were not merely enduring hardship. Instead, they were laying the foundation for generations they would never live to see,” the Prime Minister said.

Today, Persad-Bissessar said, the descendants of these indentured workers stand as the living fulfillment of the dreams their ancestors carried across the kala pani. She posed a rhetorical question that resonated with the crowd: Could her great-grandmother, who walked the muddy tracks of Penal in poverty and marginalization, ever have imagined that her own great-granddaughter would one day lead the nation as Prime Minister? That descendants of the jahajis (ship travelers), once mocked and excluded, would become leaders and builders of modern, independent Trinidad and Tobago? “That is their triumph, their victory, and the greatness of the jahaji legacy,” she declared.

While honoring the specific contributions of Indian indentured immigrants, the Prime Minister emphasized that their story is an integral part of Trinidad and Tobago’s broader inclusive national story. Descendants of Indian immigrants, she noted, have joined the descendants of African, European, Chinese, and Middle Eastern communities to collectively shape the country’s vibrant culture, unique national identity, and ongoing development, binding all groups together through a shared history of struggle and progress.

In the months after a January police-involved shooting left one person dead and another critically injured, a 24-year-old small business owner named Alyssa Phillip has emerged as the most high-profile voice demanding justice for her injured friend Kaia Sealy. As calls for accountability grow, and government moves to restrict demonstrations have sparked accusations of intimidation, a close friend and fellow activist has opened up about who Phillip really is, and what drives the ongoing protest movement.

The *Sunday Express* reached out to Phillip multiple times to request an in-person interview about her background and motivations, but she declined, prioritizing organizing actions in support of Sealy. Instead, the outlet spoke with Mariah Walcott, another leading figure in the pro-Sealy movement, who has stood alongside Phillip since the first demonstration was organized.

Walcott, Phillip, and Sealy have been tied together by a friendship spanning more than 13 years. All three 24-year-olds attended Bishop Anstey High School in Port of Spain together, and have stayed close through graduation, career building, and starting their own families.

According to Walcott, Phillip is the head of a family-owned baking business that delivers pastries across the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The company was originally founded and run by Phillip’s father when the three were still in high school, but he handed full control over to Phillip after she graduated. Leveraging her formal education and natural business acumen, Phillip has grown the enterprise significantly, a feat that requires her to wake as early as 4 a.m. each day to prep orders and make deliveries across the country. Even with this demanding full-time role, she still carves out time to lead protests against what the group views as systemic injustice in the country.

Walcott says neither she nor Phillip see themselves as formal public activists. “We are simply people trying to do the right thing,” she explained, emphasizing that the group refuses to be silenced despite mounting pressure. She argues that the recent introduction of restricted “no-protest zones” near key government institutions, combined with Phillip’s recent arrest, are deliberate intimidation tactics designed to crush public dissent and discourage further demonstration.

Phillip was arrested on charges related to the protests, granted bail this past Wednesday – but even after her release, the movement has continued, with Walcott stepping in to lead actions when Phillip was detained. When Phillip was taken into custody, Walcott guided a march from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to Port of Spain’s Woodford Square, where she told gathered supporters that attempts to muffle the movement had already failed.

Walcott recalled how the protests first came together in the days after the shooting. She was at work when she got the news that Sealy had been shot, and Sealy’s common-law husband Joshua Samaroo had been killed by police. She left work immediately to go to the hospital, but was denied access to Sealy, and no hospital or law enforcement officials would answer her questions about what had happened. That night, she called Phillip, and the pair grieved together over the phone.

A few days later, after security footage of the shooting was released to the public, Phillip reached back out to Walcott to float the idea of organizing a public demonstration. “What do you think about making some signs and getting people together to protest?” Phillip asked, and Walcott said she never hesitated to agree.

Walcott describes the longstanding dynamic of the three friends: she herself is the most outspoken of the group, Phillip is a natural, energetic “firecracker,” and Sealy has always been the calm, soft-spoken, reserved member of the trio. “That’s why seeing what happened to her has been so heartbreaking,” Walcott said.

Raised in poverty, Walcott said she has always cared deeply about fighting for better outcomes for marginalized people in her community, and her longstanding bond with Sealy made joining the protest an obvious choice. “There were times growing up when I had nowhere to go. I could always knock on Kaia’s door and I would have somewhere to sleep and something to eat. Her family became a second family to me,” she explained. The pair even experienced pregnancy around the same time, building their young families alongside one another.

Walcott acknowledged that she has received threats for her role in the movement, but she said the intimidation has not deterred her. While she is more cautious out of concern for her two young children and her public sector job, she remains committed to continuing the campaign, even with new restrictions on public gathering. “If I don’t speak up, what example am I setting for my children and the children to come?” she asked.

Sealy, who is currently facing eight charges including manslaughter and has active warrants out for her arrest, has been overwhelmed and humbled by the public support she has received, Walcott said. Sealy has never lost her religious faith through the ordeal, and constantly expresses gratitude to everyone who has sacrificed their time and energy to stand with her.

Walcott also emphasized how deeply she owes her own support to Phillip, who stepped up to help her when she was laid off from her job and struggling financially. When Walcott called Phillip distraught about her unemployment, Phillip offered her a job immediately, inviting her to come work alongside her baking and selling pastries across Port of Spain. “We are like sisters,” Walcott said of her bond with both Phillip and Sealy.

When asked if she is related to famed Trinidadian Nobel laureate Sir Derek Walcott, Mariah Walcott laughed and said she does not know for sure, but the connection would make sense: she has loved literature, poetry, writing, and music her entire life.

A brutal targeted shooting has claimed the life of a 22-year-old Tobago resident on a quiet residential street Friday night, leaving local law enforcement searching for a killer and pushing the island nation’s annual murder count to a grim milestone.

The victim has been publicly identified as Jalon Graham, who also went by the nickname “Lolo” and resided at Gerald Graham Trace in the Union neighborhood of Tobago. According to official reports from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, the fatal attack unfolded just after 10 p.m. as Graham traveled west on foot along Whim Old Road.

Investigators outline that an unidentified male suspect approached Graham from behind without warning. Moments after the confrontation, witnesses in the area reported hearing a loud explosion consistent with a gunshot. Immediately after firing, the suspect fled the scene: witnesses and police accounts confirm he scaled a perimeter wall before disappearing into nearby dense vegetation, evading immediate capture.

First responding officers rushed to Whim Old Road after receiving reports of the shooting, and found Graham lying unresponsive on the pavement, with no signs of life. Forensic teams processing the crime scene later recovered a single spent 9mm bullet casing near the victim’s body, providing a key piece of evidence for ongoing investigations.

Preliminary accounts of Graham’s movements that night show he had made a quick stop to buy fast food just minutes before the attack, a detail that police are reviewing as they work to piece together the sequence of events. As of Saturday, investigators have not publicly announced any confirmed motive for the killing, and no suspects have been taken into custody.

The killing of Graham pushes the total murder toll across Trinidad and Tobago for the current year to 148, marking a sobering statistic that underscores ongoing public safety challenges facing the twin-island nation.

A devastating late-night fire left a small community preparatory school with substantial structural and property damage earlier this week, with investigators pointing to a faulty electrical fan as the likely source of the ignition. The blaze broke out just after 9 p.m. on Thursday at Sarah’s Preparatory School, located in the Sunset Ridge neighborhood of La Romaine, triggering chaotic emotional scenes as alarmed parents and young students gathered outside the property while flames tore through two interior rooms of the two-story building.

Local residents who spotted the emergency acted first, attempting to contain and douse the spreading flames before official emergency crews arrived. Firefighters responded swiftly to the scene and ultimately brought the blaze under full control, but the intensity of the fire left large sections of the building gutted, particularly the building’s playroom and adjoining cafeteria space.

Sarah Mohammed, the school’s founding principal who has worked in education for 31 years, told local media outlet *Express* that early estimates put total losses at close to $100,000. Despite the heavy damage, Mohammed made clear she was deeply grateful for the quick action that stopped the fire from spreading further across the entire property, crediting both the immediate diligence of nearby neighbors and the rapid response of local fire department personnel for limiting destruction.

Mohammed explained that the problematic fan was plugged into an electrical outlet inside the school’s children’s playroom, where it had gone undetected as a safety hazard. “Apparently, the fan was faulty and there was a motor spinning at the back, which we did not know. It got overheated and exploded. The entire play area and eating area were gutted. All of the kids’ doll houses, chairs and tables were destroyed. The fire was contained very quickly,” she shared.

For the past five years, Mohammed has operated the school out of the rented Sunset Ridge property, which has grown into a beloved second home for hundreds of students and staff members over that time. She projects that full post-fire cleanup and safety inspections will take approximately one week to complete, after which the school plans to resume normal daily operations at the site.

Remarkably, just one day after the fire, the school went ahead with a long-planned annual community event. Its popular Cultural Day programme, held this year at the nearby Bel Air Play Park, proceeded on schedule as planned, featuring performances from celebrated local pannist Joshua Regrello, the Fire Nation African Dance Troupe, the Woodland Indian Group, and traditional moko jumbie stilt performers.

Speaking on the decision to move forward with the event despite the devastating setback, Mohammed emphasized the importance of honoring the young students’ hard work. “Even though the fire was a setback, the kids have practised for weeks and we cannot disappoint them. Regardless of how I feel, I need to be strong for them,” she said, highlighting the school community’s resolve to bounce back from the unexpected disaster.