Shootings left six people dead, including a four-year-old, and nine others injured amid suspected gang violence

Authorities in Jamaica have imposed curfews after two recent shootings in which six people, including a four-year-old child, were killed and nine others injured as suspected gang violence rattles the Caribbean island.

The most recent shooting took place on Tuesday night after unidentified gunmen drove past a group of people in the capital, Kingston, and opened fire. Six people, including two nine-year-old children and two teenagers, were shot, according to the Kingston Central police superintendent Beresford Williams.

It was later reported that one of the teenagers died on Wednesday morning.

A separate shooting occurred on Sunday north-west of the capital, when five people, including a four-year-old, were killed just outside the town of Linstead in St Catherine parish.

Police have not said what motivated the killings.

Andrew Holness, the Jamaican prime minister, who visited victims’ families in Linstead, described the attack as “criminal terrorism” that was “designed to bring on the people of the community the highest level of fear”.

“And so my presence here as well is to highlight that we must also focus on the victims: the three children who are left behind by the murder of an innocent mother; the father who was just crying a while ago, [that] his son didn’t get to give him a grandson; the grandmother who was crying in her room,” he told the grieving community.

Condemning the “tragic, senseless killing”, the police commissioner, Kevin Blake, appealed to the community to support the police in bringing the perpetrators to justice. “It is time that we as a people exercise intolerance of this type of senseless behavior, we do not need to give them shelter. These guys are somewhere, somewhere being sheltered by someone,” he said, adding that the Jamaica constabulary force would leave no stone unturned to ensure that the perpetrators were brought to justice.

A curfew was imposed in Linstead from 6pm on Monday and will continue until 6pm on Wednesday.

The island of 2.8 million people reported 522 killings as of 4 October, a 41% drop compared with 883 killings reported in the same period last year, according to police statistics.

Holness warned that “though we are making progress”, the mission to create a peaceful Jamaica “is not complete”.

He added: “We’re still on a good track. And we can do even better if every Jamaican were to agree that the criminals must be dealt with. They must be brought to justice. We will not protect them.”

Much of the violence in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean is blamed on guns illegally smuggled from the US.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Source: www.theguardian.com