Fifty-two el­der­ly peo­ple aged 60 years and over have been mur­dered in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween the start of 2018 and now, with the first nine months of 2019 ac­count­ing for 32 of them. This star­tling dis­clo­sure was made to Guardian Me­dia by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) on Tues­day.

Of the 32 cas­es this year, six peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and charged, one of which was a fam­i­ly mem­ber of one of the vic­tims. In 2018, 20 mur­ders were re­port­ed, sev­en of which were de­tect­ed with ten peo­ple ar­rest­ed and charged, one of whom was a fam­i­ly mem­ber.

An ar­ti­cle pub­lished in the Sun­day Guardian on Sep­tem­ber 8, re­vealed that be­tween 2016 and Sep­tem­ber 8, eight per cent of the vic­tims of se­ri­ous crimes in this coun­try have been se­nior cit­i­zens. In that ar­ti­cle, Janelle Se­bas­t­ian-Reyes, an of­fi­cer at the Vic­tim Wit­ness and Sup­port Unit (VW­SU) of­fi­cer ex­pressed con­cern about how vul­ner­a­ble the coun­try’s rapid­ly grow­ing el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion are to crim­i­nals “Eight per cent is too high!” (Trinidad Guardian)…[+]