A ten-year-old girl was killed yesterday around 2 pm when she was struck down by a car on the Public Road at Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara.

Dead is Alisha Vandeyar of Lot 5 Bella Dam, Pouderoyen and a Grade Six pupil of Vreed-en-Hoop Primary School. She was the oldest of five children.

This newspaper was told that Vandeyar was struck down by the car as she was returning to the home of a family friend. Her mother, Bibi Zulika Mohamed, was at the home of the friend chatting at the time.

The family friend, Jennifer Ledoux, told Stabroek News that she had been preparing vermicelli and had sent Vandeyar to purchase food dye at a nearby shop. The child was returning across the road with the item when she was hit by the car, PKK 6861, which was heading south and flung several feet away. She reportedly died on the spot.

Police said yesterday that the driver of the car was in custody assisting with investigations.

Ledoux said that when the accident occurred shortly before 2 pm Mohamed was exiting her (Ledoux’s) yard. “She hear the noise and she run back inside and tell me the lil girl got knock down,” Ledoux said. The woman related that she then ran out and observed the girl’s body lying close to the side of the road.

Mohamed stopped another vehicle and took her eldest daughter to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where she was officially pronounced dead. Shocked relatives rushed there only to be told that the girl was dead.

After returning from the hospital to her Bella Dam, home, Mohamed lay on a sofa sobbing uncontrollably as relatives tried in vain to comfort her. She wailed loudly while calling Alisha’s name. “Ow ow me baby”, the woman cried as relatives held her.

Vandeyar would have celebrated her 11th birthday on Christmas Eve. She was described by relatives as “pretty, friendly, kind and willing”. Apart from her mother and siblings, she also leaves to mourn other relatives and friends.

Road accidents and fatalities have been soaring despite the police’s ongoing and widely publicized zero tolerance on traffic infractions campaign.

Only last weekend, a motorist was killed and two passengers were injured in a car crash on the Bagotstown Public Road, East Bank Demerara. Earlier in the week, two vehicles collided at Grove, also on the East Bank Demerara, killing a pedestrian and injuring two others.

In early November, two persons died and three others including a baby were injured when a speeding car on its way to Linden was driven off a bridge at Kara Kara on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

On the Versailles Public Road on West Bank Demerara, a motorcyclist and his pillion rider died following a head-on collision with a sand-laden truck. (Gaulbert Sutherland)