By KARL E CUPID Tobago Bureau Sunday, April 26 2009

click on pic to zoom in

MasterCard Worldwide and The Falls at West Mall are partnering for the second consecutive year to host MasterCard Fashion Month at the mall. Shows are...

A body believed to be that of five-year-old Shakel Woods, of Parlatuvier, Tobago, who was reported missing on Monday afternoon, was reportedly spotted by a fisherman in waters off Buccoo on Friday afternoon. However, the body was not recovered during subsequent searches by Coast Guard personnel.

The fisherman is said to have sighted the child’s body clad in a short blue jeans and a red-and-white shirt while on a fishing expedition in an area off Buccoo, on Tobago’s south west coast.

Shakel’s grandmother Francellia Woods confirmed he was wearing clothes fitting that description when he mysteriously disappeared within a five-minute period after going to a parlour near the jetty in the rural village of Parlatuvier on Tobago’s far northern end at about 5pm Monday.

The fisherman returned to shore and alerted the Coast Guard base in Tobago. A Coast Guard patrol reportedly went to the area by nightfall on Friday and carried out a search but the body was not located. Coast Guard personnel, accompanied by police officers and fishermen from Buccoo, including the one who had initially reported the sighting, returned to the area yesterday (Saturday) morning but failed to locate the body.

A Coast Guard official in Tobago initially acknowledged the information but later explained he was not authorised to give official confirmation of the report and referred Newsday to a senior officer who in turn referred this reporter to the Coast Guard Public Relations Officer (Lieutenant Baptiste) at Coast Guard Headquarters at Staubles Bay in Trinidad.

The PRO was reportedly absent and a senior officer at Coast Guard Headquarters declined to confirm or deny the report, he, too, saying he was not authorised to do so.

The report of the sighting and subsequent searches by the Coast Guard and Police were, however, confirmed by Woods and other relatives of the missing boy, along with residents at Buccoo. Following Shakel’s disappearance, his relatives along with villagers at Parlatuvier mounted a search that Monday night, and Coast Guard and police personnel subsequently joined in the search over the next few days, which has so far proved fruitless.

Relatives, meanwhile, say they strongly believe the body sighted off Buccoo is that of the missing boy and are praying for its recovery to bring some sort of closure to the tragic incident.