Number 30 Village, West Coast Berbice was plunged into mourning yesterday afternoon when 9-year-old Keiana Fraser went missing after going for a swim.

Police in a press statement yesterday said the child is reported to have drowned at about 2.30pm yesterday while swimming in the vicinity of a sluice at Number 29 Village.

Fraser and four female friends had gone to the area to do a ‘bush cook’ during which they went for a swim, police said. Public spirited persons along with police were still searching for the child’s body up to late last night.

When Stabroek News visited the child’s Number 30 Village home yesterday, relatives were inconsolable and expressed no hope that the child might have survived. Fraser’s grandmother ex-plained that the child left home around noon yesterday with a group of friends and cousins for a cook out.
More than two hours later, Fraser’s grandmother re-called, they received a telephone call informing them that the child had drowned.

“She was a nice, sweet child,” the distressed grandmother said.

“She kiss me and tell goodbye but I didn’t know that was the last goodbye I would get.”