Robert Lalah, Staff Reporter
Kemar Allen (left) and Mario Morgan, who were shot and killed yesterday.
SIX MORE persons lost their lives to gun violence between Tuesday night and early yesterday, bringing to 13 the number of murders committed since the start of the year.
Kemar Allen and Mario Morgan, both 22, of Anderson Road in Kingston, were gunned down in the community about 1:30 a.m. yesterday. Meanwhile, the bullet-riddled bodies of 17-year-old Tanya Martin and 26-year-old B-Jorn Hall of Geenvale district in Mandeville, Manchester, were found yesterday, after residents reported hearing explosions about 2:00 a.m.
The Gleaner visited the homes of Allen and Morgan yesterday and found their family members in mourning. Morgan's year-old daughter, who had been crying for her father earlier, was comforted by his photograph, which her mother showed to her. Family members of both men said the two were close friends and had known each other since childhood.
Only hours before those incidents, Andrew Bent, 29, and a 15-year-old male, were shot and killed on Penrith Road in the troubled South St. Andrew area. The three double murders occurred within the space of nine hours.
The South St. Andrew police division reported one of the highest murder rates last year. The Kingston West police revealed that most of the 130 homicides reported in the division in 2005 were committed in the constituency.
But the upsurge in crime is not confined to Kingston, as figures compiled in St. Mary reveal that the number of murders committed in that parish almost doubled in 2005, moving from 16 in 2004 to 29 last year.
MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
Meanwhile, an international broadcasting network, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), has dubbed Jamaica the 'Murder Capital of the World'.
The BBC, in a report this week, noted that "Jamaica has now been classed the murder capital of the world, after 2005 saw more than 1,600 people killed; a tally of at least five people murdered a day".
Additional reporting by Lisa Lynch, Deon Green and Angelo Laurence.
