There are no animals roaming the grassy plain or birds chirping in the woody terrain. No children playing marbles or 'stucky' in their yards. No farmers returning home laden with the day's harvest, and no women at the riverside washing clothes as is typical of many deep rural communities in Jamaica.

Instead, the square at Gobay in St Catherine, three miles outside Riversdale, is deserted. All shop shutters are tightly closed, giving the feel of a ghost town. The few residents who have not fled the community cower behind closed doors for fear that they will suffer a similar fate as many of their neighbours who have been gunned down in the last month.

These children join half-heartedly in the singing of Christmas carols in a classroom where written on the blackboard is contact information for the police instead of Mathematics and English. (Photos: Lionel Rookwood)

The Baptist, Pentecostal, Prophecy and Revival churches in the community have all closed their doors after nearly 70 per cent of the approximately 1,500 residents fled for their lives.

Fear hangs like a heavy blanket of fog over the community, as no one is willing to even be seen talking to the Sunday Observer. Parents hastily pull children to their sides when any efforts are made to begin a conversation.

"The entire community shut down and even the church them have to lock up because them killing all Christians to," said one resident who was bold enough to talk with us, although he spoke in hushed tones while glancing over his shoulders ever so often.

This little boy is captured in a pensive mood on Wednesday on his return to the Berry Hill All-Age School for the first time in three weeks.

The 60-odd year-old man, 'Nathan', who has lived there most of his life, said this is something which no one could have foreseen happening in what was a very peaceful community. So peaceful was it, many of the persons who have fled were landowners who had spent many years working nutmeg, chocolate and cinnamon farms to build their homes.

"Many of these people planned to live here for the rest of their lives and to be buried on their land when they die. Now, if you see how they have to just lock up their houses and move out like thieves in the night," he said.

"Even some who died had to be taken to Dovecot (cemetery) to be buried because people are not coming round here for the funeral. We had a funeral yesterday and most of the people came to the church outside the community and after the service they went home because they are not coming round here to the graveside," Nathan added.

The violence, which has claimed at least five lives since November, has also impacted on the residents' livelihood, as many farmers are unable to get their produce to the market because the truck that normally transports them and their goods has not returned to the area.

This empty classroom at Berry Hill All-Age School would normally have been filled with children learning on a typical school day. However, last week Wednesday the empty benches told the whole story. (Photos: Lionel Rookwood)

According to Nathan, a number of Gobay's farmers have been the backbone of the Spanish Town market. However, many have fled, leaving their crops behind while those who remain are watching their crops die in the ground because they have no means of transporting them from the community.

"Even the cocoa selector who used to come here to select the cocoa for sale not coming here anymore because of the violence," he said.

As he stands talking with the Sunday Observer, a head pops out from behind the hedging of a yard, but is quickly hidden from view, while two young boys sitting on the side of an abandoned shop hastily get out of the way of the camera's lens.

Pointing to the D&D Better Buy Grocery shop, the largest in the square, the resident said all but two of the more than eight shops in the community had shut down. "If you want a soda to buy around here it hard fi get one," he said.

He added that residents who work in Bog Walk cannot come home once it gets dark. "If 8 o'clock catch you a Bog Walk you betta find somewhere fi sleep because no taxi nah carry yu come round here," he said.

He looked sharply around as he said the police are usually in the community at nights. But that, he said, offers very little comfort to the residents, some of whom are opting to sleep in the bushes at nights instead of in their homes where they feel less safe.

The plight of the community was first brought under the spotlight after teachers at the Berry Hill All-Age and Infant School left the classrooms three weeks ago in fear for their lives, causing the school to send home students.

Last Wednesday, when the Sunday Observer visited the community, some students had returned to the school for the first time in the three weeks. They were there, however, to attend the annual fair, which the principal said the school decided to keep despite the tense situation in the area.

But only women and children were at the fair. One resident said that while no one is safe, as both women and men have been murdered, the men consider themselves to be most at risk.

The Sunday Observer got an idea of how deep the fear ran in the community when, on trying to make light conversation with three little girls, they were immediately scooped up by their parents and a teacher who all beat a hasty retreat.

When the news team approached a group of students and parents seated under a tree, they all ran.

So scared were they that they even protested against the taking of photographs of the children singing Christmas carols in a classroom.

Francis Williams, principal of the Berry Hill All-Age and Infant School since the 1980s, said Gobay was once a densely populated community until four weeks ago when more than half of the residents fled.

Since then, he said, he has lost 110 students from the school, some of whom were preparing to sit the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) in March.

Williams said the remaining residents are anxiously awaiting the promises of a postal agency, a police post and a community centre made by member of parliament Gregory Mair. Currently, residents have to travel three miles on a partly marl road to get to Riversdale where the nearest police station and postal agency are located.

A cop at the Riversdale Police Station said the residents have a valid reason for being afraid to be seen talking with anyone. He recounted an incident in May this year when the police went into the community in search of two wanted men who had fled from Portland to the area.

"When we got there we did not find the two men, so we stopped at a man's gate and was talking to him without knowing that we were being observed. When we left, the gunmen came that night and killed him," the cop said.

He said while violence escalated in the community since November, it was caused by an incident two years ago when two groups of men went to war after someone who was imported from outside the community was killed.

He said that although members of the Mobile Reserve conduct regular patrols, the hilly terrain and heavy foliage make the area very difficult to police.

The police believe that the gunmen are driven to the neighbouring district of Troja where they make the trek by foot through the hills and alongside the river bank into Gobay without being noticed.

To make matters worse, he said, the police are unable to do much as the station only has three constables and one service vehicle. And that became even more difficult after the Troja Police Station was closed and the Berry Hill area fell under their jurisdiction.

"They closed the station and gave us all these additional communities to police, yet they haven't given us more resources to do so," said the cop.

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