Search continues for Sangre Grande toddler

Police and community-based search groups continued their search for two-year-old Umar Ali who was taken from his mother’s home in Sangre Grande last week.

Police along with Hunters Search and Rescue team scoured the Barker Trace, Coalmine area searching for Umar, on Sunday. Working on information gathered over the past week, the team and Eastern Division Task Force officers searched nearny forested areas, a bog and an abandoned house where the male relative once lived.

The efforts have so far not resulted in success and the boy remains missing.

On Sunday, Newsday accompanied the search party and was told that everyone is optimistic the boy is alive and safe, for now.

However, they are worried that may change at any time.

“From what we understand, he (the relative) has mental issues,” Shamshudeen Ayube, head of the hunters's team told Newsday.

“He has done this before with other children; and if you have done this before and those children survived, we now hope for the best.”

At about 2.30 am on May 23, Umar and his mother were sleeping in bed at their Quash Trace, Sangre Grande, home when the male relative snuck into their yard and picked open one of the doors of the house to gain entry.

The boy's mother told investigators that she turned in her sleep and woke to find the male relative standing over the bed, holding Ali in his arms.

An alarm was raised but the relative managed to escape with the child. The boy's mother refused to speak to the media on Sunday.

Newsday was told that the relative was in contact with the child's mother and her family on the phone but they lost contact on Thursday.

Ali was last seen wearing a navy blue long pants and a jersey. He is of East Indian descent, about three feet tall, light brown in complexion, has short, black hair, a scar on the right side of his face and another on his shoulder.

Police advised that people with knowledge of Ali’s whereabouts or may have seen the child, should contact the Sangre Grande Police Station at 668-2444 or call hotlines 999, 555, or Crime Stoppers at 800-TIPS.