The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Saturday that one of its aid containers, containing crucial supplies for maternal, neonatal, and child survival, was looted at Haiti’s main port, amidst increasing control of the capital by gangs.
Associated Press
Approximately 260 humanitarian-owned containers are under the control of armed groups. Bruno Maes, UNICEF’s representative in Haiti, condemned the looting. He emphasised its detrimental impact on children in urgent need of assistance. The looted container contained essential items such as resuscitators and related equipment. Maes called for an immediate end to looting and emphasised the necessity of ensuring safe humanitarian access amid the escalating crisis. Armed groups breached the main port a week earlier, disrupting the flow of essential food and supplies to the capital.
Haiti is experiencing a critical shortage of basic healthcare and nutrition access for women in the Port-au-Prince area. Nationwide shortages of electricity, fuel, and medical supplies have crippled hospitals, with six out of ten facilities unable to operate effectively.
AFP via Getty Images
Haiti continues to grapple with a protracted political and humanitarian crisis, resulting in severe hunger and life-threatening malnutrition in parts of Port-au-Prince.
In response to the crisis, unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced plans to step down once a transitional council is established. However, the capital remains heavily influenced by armed gangs, leading to widespread violence, including killings, kidnappings, and sexual assaults.
Police have charged one of their own for the crime of aggravated assault with a firearm. Thirty-six-year-old police officer Felix Hernandez was charged with shooting Richard Valerio on Thursday, March 14th.
The incident happened at the Punta Gorda sports auditorium. Fernandez told police that he and his common-law wife were attending a basketball game when they were harassed by Richard Valerio, the ex-partner of Fernandez’s wife, who made threatening remarks. Fernandez attempted to avoid confrontation by relocating, but Valerio persisted with profanity.
When Fernandez decided to leave and requested an escort to his vehicle, he discovered Valerio damaging his car with rocks, prompting Fernandez to intervene. After Valerio threw a rock at Fernandez, missing him, Fernandez fired a single shot from his licenced 9mm pistol in Valerio’s direction. Valerio sustained injuries to his lower back and was taken to the Punta Gorda Hospital for treatment.
Police continue to search for Jamie Young, the man investigators say fatally shot thirty-year-old Damion Baptist. According to the official police report, officers were called out to an area near mile nine on the Philip Goldson Highway. At the scene, police found a red Ford Fusion crashed into a lamp post. They also observed bullet holes on the front passenger side.
Scene of crashed red Ford
Baptist was driving the car while twenty-nine-year-old Laneedrah Dawson, Young’s ex-girlfriend, was in the passenger seat. They were travelling from Ladyville Village towards Belize City when Young began following them in his grey Wingle. Between miles eight and nine on the highway, Young overtook them, halted his vehicle, and discharged multiple shots, injuring Baptist. An ambulance passing by rushed Baptist to the KHMH, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Police in Belize City are investigating the shooting murder of twenty-six-year-old Liston Williams. Williams was shot several times on Saturday night in Belize City. Police say that at around 9:50 p.m., Williams was riding his motorcycle on Woodpecker Street when he was approached by the gunman, who fired several shots in his direction. Police are investigating.
Exclusive footage captured by News Five shows the moment when a member of the Belize Police Department had to fire two warning shots to break up a fight. The brawl broke out on Sunday morning at the MCC Grounds in Belize City, following a match between Kelly Street FC and Fort George FC.
Despite the two warning shots, the brawl continued. Officers on the ground later took control of the situation.
Teams and supporters gathered at the MCC Grounds for the William Dawson Peace Cup 2023-2024.
Ground was officially broken for the commencement of the Stake Bank Tourism Development Project back in 2018, and work got underway for the mega cruise facility shortly thereafter. But tonight, after investing north of one hundred million dollars, Port Coral, a Michael Feinstein initiative, has gone into receivership. Earlier today, News Five confirmed that a receiver had been appointed for the project during a meeting on Thursday. That individual is Marlowe Neal. The receivership is expected to last for a period of between six to nine months with a view to complete the construction of piers that would allow for cruise ships to berth at Stake Bank. But there is also multi-million dollar claim that had been brought against the Briceno administration prior to Stake Bank going into receivership. Earlier today, we caught up with Prime Minister John Briceño, who spoke briefly on the matter, as well as the status of a piece of legislation that was to have been introduced in place of the definitive agreement.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“When it comes to the issue of the receivership, that‘s a matter for the bank and I‘m sure that they may have their reasons why it is that they believe that they have to put the Stake Bank project in receivership. But, as we know, the main players behind the Stake Bank Project decided to sue the government and from what I am told there is really no case. So I can‘t understand why it is that they would want to sue the government.”
Reporter
“What do you believe this means for the cruise sector? Will Belize ever see a berthing port?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“I do believe that we will. As we said, there are three areas: there is Stake Bank, there is Portico and also now there is the Port of Belize. And so, all of that is still remaining in play and we will see which is the one to be developed into a cruise port that can meet not only the needs for today, but also for ten, twenty years from today.”
Reporter
“This is the largest receivership, I believe, in Belize’s banking history. Do you think it will affect the banking sector, though?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“No, it will not. The Central Bank has been very clear and also, so has Atlantic Bank. They have been very clear from day one that they are going to ensure that they protect every single cent of the depositors. So, no, I do not expect it to be a problem.”
Isani Cayetano
“PM, where are we with the legislation that’s forthcoming with respect of cruise tourism development in this country?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“Well, nowhere. Until we know where we’re going, it does not make sense to pass this piece of legislation. We’re pretty much ready, but depending on which direction we will go then we may need to make some adjustments to that piece of legislation. So that is why we are holding on to it and we will deal with it when the time is appropriate.”
Reporter
“Notwithstanding that you say the claimants don’t have a case, has the government engaged with them? Have you met with them?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“No, I have not met with them, but Mr. Feinstein did call me on Wednesday wanting to have a meeting, so I hope to meet with them next week.”
Prime Minister John Briceño is scheduled to meet with the Christian Workers Union on Monday to discuss the tumultuous state of affairs between the Port of Belize and the stevedores. As we reported earlier this week, employees of P.B.L. effected a work-to-rule after repeatedly demanding that government compensate them for sugar redundancies after the shipment of bulk sugar was relocated to Big Creek a few years ago. But G.O.B. remains resolute in its position and today PM Briceño echoed the sentiment that no one lost their job as a result of the transfer. Here’s what he had to say ahead of Monday’s meeting.
Prime Minister John Briceño
“I’ve had several with the stevedores and every time we meet, we come with an agreement but it seems that when they leave the meeting they come up with other issues. I said to them from the beginning, let‘s not talk about sugar or the sugar money. I said, you have your position and we have our position that there is no claim for no kind of redundancy. Nobody got fired, so there is no sugar money. But as a government, we are prepared to be able to address many of the pending issues between the stevedores and the Port of Belize so that we can modernize the port. The way the port has been running for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years, it‘s not in the interest of the port or in the interest of the country and I have been explaining to the stevedores, now we have competition, there is more than one port. So when you decide that you don‘t want to discharge a ship, the ship would either go back to their home country, quite likely the United States, or they go down south to discharge their container. That‘s what happened with sugar. So when they behave the way they do, they decide not to offload, they are shooting themselves in the foot. We need to be able to find common ground where we both, stevedores, Port of Belize and the Government of Belize, that we want to find how we could move this forward, how we could modernize and that is the intent, to protect their interest. I understand and we want to do that, that is why the government made an offer of one point five million dollars to say, listen, let‘s stop fighting about everything. Let‘s come up with the new working practices. You can‘t work more than fifteen hours and when you‘re finished working fifteen hours a new gang finishes if the ship is not finished offloading. Let‘s look at the number of gangs, the port wanted to bring it down to twelve, there‘s fourteen and the stevedores said they would not accept it. I said, okay, in the CBA that you have already signed you‘re talking about thirteen, okay, let‘s stay with thirteen. So we‘ve agreed to that. So, most of the things we‘ve agreed, they‘re just small little things.”
In the north, the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association has also issued a release in respect of the proposed commission of inquiry into the operations at the Belize Sugar Industries Limited. While government has been advised not to proceed with the probe, the B.S.C.F.A. has expressed its strong opposition to that recommendation and has gone on to criticize the Briceño administration. The Prime Minister told reporters earlier today that he would waste his time responding to the B.S.C.F.A.’s criticism.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“I will not waste my time in answering the BSCFA. I think and I will do what I believe is in the interest of the industry and in the interest of Belize. We have three other associations that are working with the sugar mill. They‘re not the only ones so let‘s start off with that. I have said to them that there has to be proper consultations. There were not proper consultations. The way the commission of inquiry, the terms of reference, the way it was set out, it was a terms of reference for the BSCFA. So I am meeting with the minister on Monday and on Monday we are going to finalize the terms and then we‘re going to proceed. But if we were to proceed the way they want us to proceed, we‘ll be wasting our time because we are going to be taken to court and the court is going tp rule against us. We are not going to appeal just because they asked us to appeal. We are going to appeal if there is a case and it seems as though there is not a case to appeal.”
On Thursday March fourteenth, sometime around nine fifteen p.m., police received reports of a shooting outside of the Punta Gorda sports auditorium. Officers visited the area and encountered Police Constable Feliz Fernandez attached to the Toledo Formation. PC Fernandez reported that he, along with his common-law wife, went to watch a basketball game. According to Fernandez, they sat on the bleachers and a while later they were harassed by one Richard Valerio who is his common-law’s ex- partner, who was shouting profanities to them, including saying, “somebody will die tonight”. Fernandez went on to say that to avoid a confrontation, they moved to another area. However, they were accosted by Valerio, who continued with his profanities. Fernandez further stated that he decided to leave and asked a fellow officer to escort him to his vehicle. Fernandez claims that Valerio later inflicted damage to his car which was parked outside of the auditorium, by shattering the windshield with rocks. The report further states that PC Fernandez ordered Richard Valerio to drop the rock, that is when Richard Valerio threw a rock in PC Fernandez’s direction but missed. Fernandez then claims that, fearing for his life, he drew his licensed mine millimeter pistol and fired a single shot in Valerio’s direction. Valerio then ran inside the complex area and was then immediately rushed by police to the Punta Gorda Hospital for medical treatment for injuries to his lower back. We spoke with the sister of the victim, who wishes to remain unnamed. She stated that contrary to Fernandez’s account, her brother had not approached or interacted with the officer. According to her, her brother had been the victim of multiple incidents of harassment from the officer and had even been assaulted previously inside his home. Accusations are that the dispute ignited over a shared romantic partner and that her brother had been on the receiving end of injustice for several months now. Commissioner of Police has ordered an internal investigation concurrent with the criminal investigation into this incident. An update will be provided at the end of the investigation. The firearm was retrieved for ballistic testing.
He murdered his mother, sister and stepfather in November 2012 and since then, has tried everything to stall the case by changing several attorneys, requesting two sentence indications and frustrated a trial judge to the point of recusing himself from the case. But today, thirty-six-year-old Jared Ranguy opted not to stand trial and instead entered a guilty plea via a teleconference session from the Belize Central Prison. It was an emotional morning and a packed courtroom before High Court Justice, Nigel Pilgrim. News Five’s Marion Ali was there and filed this report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Jared Ranguy, who had for many years tried to usurp the justice system, by firing his attorneys to force adjournments, has finally decided not to let his court matter languish any longer by pleading guilty, instead of going to a trial. Relatives of the three deceased persons sobbed as Ranguy admitted to the court that he murdered his mother, Karen Skeen, his sister, Teena Skeen and his stepfather, Robert Vellos, as they slept inside their home in Ladyville. In responding to questions posed by High Court Judge, Nigel Pilgrim, Ranguy told the court that he indeed murdered his three family members and that he did so without provocation. He said that he was admitting to the triple murder without being coerced by anyone to do so, and that he was pleading guilty because he is guilty of the crime. When the judge asked the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, who sat in for Crown Counsel Riis Cattouse, to read the details of the three murders, Ranguy told the court that it wasn’t necessary because he was admitting to wilfully killing his family. The facts were read anyway, in order that he could agree to the sequence of events and admit guilt. D.P.P Vidal told reporters that she expected today’s outcome.
Cheryl-Lyn Vidal
Cheryl-Lyn Vidal, Director of Public Prosecutions
“I think that we anticipated [this] because of the way the discussions were going that we would have reached this point.”
Marion Ali
“And this came after many years of adjournments and change of attorneys and a previous sentence indication and even a judge recusing himself.”
Cheryl-Lyn Vidal
“Yes, I imagine that the prisoner, we can call him now, would have taken a very long time to come to terms with what the sentence might look like if he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder. Whatever operated on his mind in recent months that led him to this point.”
This point for the family was also one that they had waited almost twelve years to see. While they were still very shaken, Karen Skeen’s brother, Rene Skeen, told reporters that they were consoled by his nephew’s guilty plea.
Rene Skeen
Rene Skeen, Brother of Deceased
“We’d like to thank God. The most important thing, we got justice. And the emotions, that’s – you can’t explain it. It’s been over 11 years we’ve been waiting for this, and the day has finally come. We will never get full justice. Three people are dead, but for him pleading guilty, it helped a little bit. The pain – we can deal with it a little bit better now.”
Skeen said the guilty plea saved the family a lot more heartaches than if there had been a trial.
Rene Skeen
“The family wouldn’t have to go relive what happened 11 years ago. We would have to be in court seeing guns, knives, bloody clothes, everything. We believe in the system. We’ve been doing interviews with you guys for years and years. We have family members coming from the U.S just for court every six, eight months, nine months, so after trying to manipulate the system for so long, justice caught up with him. Although we would like to see no parole at the end of the day, like I said, for the family, we got what we were requesting for him to say, look, I’m guilty. We used to say that. You guys interviewed us and we said, you guys asked, can we forgive him? I used to say no, but now you know what? I think I can.”
Ranguy’s decision came after he had gotten a sentence indication from Justice Pilgrim on March first. In that sentence indication, Justice Pilgrim informed Ranguy that if he entered a guilty plea, he could get three life sentences without the possibility of parole until after forty years, minus the eleven years that he has served behind bars. Vidal said that the guilty plea has saved considerable time because of what that process would have entailed.
Cheryl-Lyn Vidal
“There were quite a number of witnesses who would have had to have been called. There would have been voir dires in relation to the statement that would have been given admissions that were made. So it did save the court some time, but of course this matter has been before the court for a very long time.”
Rene Skeen says that moving on now will be a bit easier for the survivors.
Marion Ali
“Now this has taken a toll on all of you. We heard the subs in the courtroom. How are you all coping now?”
Rene Skeen
“Man, today the family decided to meet no matter what would have happened today for a prayer meeting. It’s going to be a good prayer meeting today. We’re going to cope better now.”
Marion Ali for News Five.
Justice Pilgrim has ordered that a psychiatric evaluation be conducted on Ranguy and that the Belize Central Prison present a report on him. As the D.P.P. pointed out, the sentence indication is not the actual sentence. Ranguy’s attorney, Senior Counsel Godfrey Smith has until April twenty-second to submit a mitigation plea in writing and the court was adjourned until May thirteenth.
