Belizeans are outraged to learn that another innocent child from Belize City has died because of senseless gun violence. This time the victim is five-year-old Kia Herbert, and she was shot and killed while she was asleep in her home with her mother, a place she should have been safe. Several hours before she was fatally wounded, five-year-old Dominique Rhamdas passed away from gunshot injuries he suffered at the end of last weekend.
According to Police, sometime before 2 a.m. on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 they were informed that a mother and child had just arrived at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, and they were both suffering from gunshot injuries. Police responded and that’s when they found Little Kia, and her mother, 27-year-old Francis Herbert, suffering from gunshot injuries.
What police have been able to establish is that Kia and her mother, Francis, were sleeping on the floor of their Pitter Street home when they were awoken to the sound of gunshots being fired at their home. After the barrage subsided, Francis realized that she and her baby were injured. They were both rushed to the KHMH for emergency medical treatment, but unfortunately, Kia was pronounced dead on arrival.
There is currently no explanation for this horrific attack on this family’s home. Kia’s grandmother, Desiree Herbert, told the press that the only thing she could think of was several hours earlier, during the day, someone chased her son into their yard with a gun. They suspected that something might happen, and so, they took precautions to sleep low on the floor, instead of in beds. It appears that the killers found out that the family was sleeping on the floor because they adjusted for that during the deadly attack.
Kia’s grandmother, her school teacher, and the school warden at her school have described her as a very charming and endearing child. The pain of her loss is heavy on them. It is compounded by the fact that she is blameless, and ought to have been spared of the threat of gun violence. Nevertheless, the shooter(s) who opened fire on her home had no regard for the value of the human lives they threatened.
