Tonight, the community of Maskall Village in the Belize District is mourning the death of a 6-year-old child from their community.
He's Marvin Lopez, and he was electrocuted in a freak accident that none of the community's residents could have expected. Reports to our newsroom are that his little body came in contact with electricity being shared between two homes, one of which isn't directly connected to BEL's power grid.
Today, our news team traveled to Maskall looking for answers about this tragedy, and Daniel Ortiz has that story:
In less than a month, Marvin Lopez from Maskall Village would have celebrated his 7th birthday with his loved ones.
Oscar Manuel Lopez - Father of the deceased
"He like to play anything, he likes riding bicycle with them, he liked running on the water and the other thing he liked was going to bush to help us. That day we came 5pm from bush, we went to cut cucumber."
Unfortunately, his grieving family will never get to enjoy that bright wide-eyed smile in person again. He passed away on Friday after getting electrocuted in a very unusual accident.
Area residents say he was playing hide and seek with two other children, one of whom was his brother. The children were reportedly playing near this neighbour's house when Little Marvin touched a chicken coop.
That should have been a non-issue, but multiple sources in the village tell us that this makeshift power line, which the residents use to share electricity amongst themselves, was energizing the barbed wire fence connected to the chicken coop. It reportedly had an exposed section of a live wire, which fed electricity into all nearby conductors.
So, when Marvin touched the metal section of the chicken coop, that live current, coupled with the nearby puddles from the heavy weekend rains, sent a fatal jolt of electricity into his little body.
Oscar Manuel Lopez
"I feel bad. The neighbour went to tell us that our son got current and we didn't know how. So, I ran to see what happened when I saw the lady had my son in her arms. I take in the vehicle to the hospital. I think he never knew that chicken wire had current. They use to go play every evening right there."
Reporter
"We understand they were playing hide and seek?"
Oscar Manuel Lopez
"My little son said that he touched the wire and then he dropped on the wire. The other little son and the neighbour went to tell his mom that my son didn't want to get up, so they lifted up him and they got shocked as well."
The Lopez family says they aren't pointing fingers and assigning blame for the death of their son. Instead, they will now work on his burial and try to heal their emotional wounds.
Oscar Manuel Lopez
"It's an accident. I don't blame nobody. We will try to do our best begging to God, because you know he is the one that could help us have faith and just trust in him. It's hard, to lose a child is hard."
One Maskall resident and family friend is hoping that some good can come out of little Marvin's accidental death.
Jose Acosta - Teacher/Resident, Maskall Village
"These people has been appealing the government for quite some time to have a proper running of wire so that they get that service that we all want to have. The past government has been in place for 13 years and these people have been asking pleading the area rep. from that same area but nothing has been done."
"Now we have the PUP in power, we are going for 2 years and still asking their support to try to see if they can get a decent wiring there for these people, especially with the young man, the incident that happened to him. He has a child that needs oxygen and how will he be able to access that oxygen to that child if you don't have proper wiring there? I know that BEL is under the government's responsibility, so we are asking. I know many of times things take place when there is a catastrophe when something really happen, then they take action. We don't have to wait for that to take place. Its so sad that we lost one of our own relatives and we are still asking and begging the government to try to put proper wiring there for these people."