And just like the witnesses and victims need all the help they can get from the government, farmers are asking for assistance as well. One villager from Bladen in the Toledo District - determined to get help for his people travelled from the southernmost district to Belmopan for last Friday's House Meeting.
Yonardo Sho was adamant about meeting the Minister of Agriculture to tell him of their plight. And while he didn't have any luck with that, he did meet the media and told us about the subsistence farmers who reside in the village.
But now, there are no crops, since the floods of late last year, and this compounded with drainage runoff from the nearby banana farms, have washed their produce away.
It's a sad situation, and Sho detailed their struggle against the elements:
Yonardo Sho - Farmer "It's about 280 families living in Bladen and the majority is famers, some of them are working in banana farms but I really want to bring this serious matter to the table. We have about five banana farms around Bladen, and these banana farms, they have dig drainage and they have filled up all their property where they plant their banana farms but the serious matter that is now taking place in our village is the banana farm is affecting the farmers because all the water that used to go into the banana farm is not going anymore and is staying outside the banana farm and is affecting the farmers. When we plant in July, we plant the first crop in July, when it rain in July, it destroy our crop because the water stay for four days and now we cannot plant anymore until December and when we plant in December, the crop takes three months to harvest. And when we plant in December our crop is not ready until March, so the children of the farmers are suffering. Some of the children are not going to school because the parents cannot afford to pay the entrance fee because they don't have any money, the money that they have they spend it in the crop, and they have no money. So now we have children that are suffering because the children are living on corn tortilla, they live on beans, string beans and okra that we plant, that's the way we live. So now I'm trying to ask the government to assist us, to assist the farmers, to assist these kids, to have mercy on these children so that we can have a strong generation so that we can have a powerful generation of powerful kids that they can help us to live in this world so that they can support us so that we can go forward."
Sho says the villagers and ready to work with the government and the banana farmers to come to a quick and amiable resolution.
We spoke with Minister Mai today, and he seemed unaware of the issue, but promised to look into it.
