The still traumatised children of Agnes Henry and Abdool Hafeez constantly talk about the night their father “kill heself” and at night they are terrified, their grandmother Bibi Shahidan Khan says.
Two of the four children, ten-year-old Bibi Shameeza and six-year-old Rafman, who are in Primary Three and Prep B respectively at the Philadelphia Primary School have not attended classes since their father chopped their mother to within an inch of her life then hanged himself on January 3, while they watched.
Their mother, 27-year-old Agnes Henry, who is still recovering in the Georgetown Public Hospital, has not seen her children since the incident and their grandmother says the youngest, two-year-old Shaneeza often cries for her mother. Henry has since lost the fifth child she was carrying as a result of bleeding heavily after she was chopped.
Asked why the children have not been to school, Khan said that after the incident, while she was away, other relatives took them and their clothing including school uniforms and books, saying that they would look after them. The children were returned on the day of their father’s funeral minus the clothes which the relatives promised to return but have not.
As a result, the widowed woman, who turns 58 on Wednesday, says she is unable to send them to school though they have asked to return. The woman said times are hard and she has suffered her share of tragedies after the death of her husband, the severe injuries suffered by another son in an accident which has left him unable to engage in heavy labour and the recent tragedy.
A few kind persons give her money to visit her daughter-in-law in the hospital. And while she also receives public assistance in the sum of $2,300 per month, she has not received any as yet for this year.
The Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG) also gives her $3,000 a month and to supplement this she cleans a mosque for which she receives $1,500 a month. Her other son, when he is able to obtain employment, also contributes as does her daughter when she occasionally obtains domestic work.
Apart from that she rears a few chickens and eats mostly vegetables occasionally supplemented by fish when she can afford it. After the incident a few citizens donated some clothes to the family.
The tiny wooden shack her son called home is almost the same. Apart from a few utensils, a few pieces of clothing and some religious magazines the home is bare. The dilapidated bed and mattress are still there, though she has burnt the children’s mattress and mosquito net as these were bloody. Bloodstains are still visible under the bed.
Khan, who also suffers from high blood pressure, said sadly that she doesn’t know what the next step is but she is trying to “get on” with her life.
The year began tragically for this Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo family when Hafeez, who had a history of mental illness, chopped Henry to within an inch of her life before committing suicide by hanging himself as their four children looked on.
Recounting the incident on Tuesday, Henry said she was asleep and was awakened by the cutlass hacking into her body. She said that the previous day, the mental condition that her husband suffered from had surfaced and she accompanied him to the hospital where he received treatment.
They returned home and after eating dinner with him, she retired to bed leaving him downstairs.
She said he later went to sleep, but awakened with symptoms of cold sweat, itching skin, trembling and him acting in a “haunted” manner – signs that the medication had worn off. She said she urged him to “lie down and sleep na” but apparently he didn’t. She managed to fall asleep again and was awakened by the blows from the cutlass.
He chopped her severely and bleeding heavily she managed to roll under the bed where three of her four children were already crouched. The fourth child, two-year-old Shaneeza, remained on the bed. She said she saw her husband’s first failed attempts at hanging himself, but did not see the third fatal one though her ten-year-old daughter, Bibi Shameeza witnessed it all.
The woman, while not knowing what went on in her husband’s mind that morning, declared that ever since they began living together, he was jealous. “He jealous me. Me can’t go nowhere. When he drunk he does want fight with me,” she said.
She said that during the holidays he had drunk a lot and, “he nerves raise up and he can’t control it”. Then the incident that landed her in the hospital came. She said Hafeez had always told her that before he died he would kill her so that no other man could have her and it appeared as though he thought he had fulfilled that promise. She said on that night he had tightly bolted the entire home before chopping her and hanging himself.
Henry’s tragic story continued, as due to the heavy loss of blood, she subsequently miscarried. She was four months pregnant.
Both her hands were severely injured and currently, she said that apart from two fingers, she has no feeling in the rest of them. She plans to go back to live at her humble Tuschen home but doesn’t know what the future holds because “me ain’t know if I could hold with me hand again”.
She noted, though, that officials from the Ministry of Human Services had visited her and promised her assistance with her husband’s insurance. They also told her they would help her to get public assistance.
