THIS past summer was nothing short of a nightmare for 58-year-old Lurline Ewan, as she did not spend it the usual way – spoiling her two grandchildren with toys and treats. On July 21, 2007 her 11-year-old grandson Shaquille Medley and his 14-year-old sister Deidra vanished without a trace and Ewan has not had a comfortable night’s rest since.

According to the doting grandmother, the two children were at their home in Bamboo, Hanover which is close to Montego Bay, St James when they asked permission to go into Montego Bay to buy toys and other items. About 12:30 in the afternoon, they left the house together and have not been seen or heard from since.

The children’s disappearance has plunged their

grandmother into an emotional abyss that only parents and guardians of missing children can understand.

“It’s very rough. I can’t even explain because I was the one who gave them the money to go and buy the things they wanted,” she told the Sunday Observer, her voice heavy with grief. “I don’t know what I’d do if I get a call that something bad has happened to them. Right now, I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if they ran off on their own free will. They have no other family in the area and it is very distressing not knowing where next to look.”

The children’s mother, Valerie Hedram, who resides in the United Kingdom, visited the island recently and spent three weeks looking, but had to return home disappointed. Ewan, a devout Christian, said that her church and the local police have been assisting her in her quest to locate her missing grandchildren.

Meanwhile, the grandmother described Shaquille, a student of the Bethel Primary School, as a quiet, well-behaved child, but said Deidra, who attended St James High, exhibited bad behaviour on numerous occasions. She further explained that they were left in her care while their mother went abroad in search of a better life.

“I know deep down in my heart that they are alive and alright. Somebody has them. Last week I heard that they were seen in Savanna-la-Mar, near Grange Hill, but when we went there with the police, we didn’t find them. But we are not giving up,” Ewan said, fighting back tears as she spoke.

For their part, investigating officers from the Montego Bay Police Station say they are seeking the public’s help to locate the missing children as they currently have insufficient leads to move forward with their investigation.

When her youngest daughter Baneisha Barnes was born, Donna Malcolm had big dreams for her. As a single mother of three, she hoped her daughter would grow up to become a nurse or a teacher and help raise the family’s economic standard. Despite her share of socio-economic hardships and a low-paying job as a security officer, Malcolm said she tried to ensure that her daughter’s basic needs were met and that she received a proper education.

But as Baneisha, affectionately called “Punky”, grew older, Malcolm, who raised her three children in

the rough-and-tumble Allman Town area of Kingston and got married a few months ago, noticed that her child was no longer the quiet, well-behaved girl she used to be. She was disrespectful not only to her, but also to her new stepfather.

Teachers reported that her grades and deportment at Vauxhall High were way below the acceptable level and before long Baneisha, 17, was rumoured to be pregnant. Through it all, Malcolm held firmly to her faith and stood by her troubled daughter, even as her behaviour deteriorated. But on July 14, Malcolm returned home from work to find that her daughter was nowhere to be found.

“Baneisha would normally be home. But when we came back, we realise that the grill lock and when we come inside and check her room, we see that most of her things were gone,” Malcolm said.

It has been three months since her daughter’s disappearance and throughout that time, Malcolm has endured many sleepless nights, countless trips to the Allman Town Police Station and made hundreds of telephone calls in an attempt to locate

her daughter.

“I am very concerned about her because I don’t want anything to happen to her. If I heard that anything happen to her, I don’t know how I’d manage,” Malcolm said, slowly wringing her hands.

While family members and members of the community believe that Baneisha is a runaway, one of several reported to the police’s National Intelligence Bureau each month, Malcolm says she is uncertain of the reason for her daughter’s disappearance.

Patricia Mitchell, 37, a single mother from Kingston, tells a similar story. Mitchell is convinced that her rebellious 14-year-old daughter Sashama Nash ran away from home on August 4. Like Malcolm, Mitchell is finding it hard to cope with her daughter’s disappearance.

“I left her at the yard with her two younger sisters and told her to take care of them until I come back,” said Mitchell, who is a vendor in downtown Kingston. “While mi ah hustle, she come and bring the children and ask me to keep them because she was going to go and buy a blouse and come back. So I tell her to go and hurry up and come back because ah hustle me ah hustle.” That was the last conversation the mother and daughter shared.

“I don’t know, but even if is pregnant she pregnant, I want her to come home because I am her mother and she is a child,” she said on the verge of tears. “Even as a single mother, mi try mi best to make my children be the best they can be. Mi try very hard,” added Mitchell.

Life is also a struggle for 38-year-old farmer, Rudolph Dunn, from Reach district in Portland, whose 15-year-old daughter, Dorraine Dunn of Bath Junior High, has been missing since mid-June.

“I don’t why she just disappear like that. She have bad behaviour, but everything was going alright. She pass a exam to go to another school and she just disappear,” Dunn told the Sunday Observer. “It frustratin’ bad, but mi ah try not to stress out myself right now. I report everything to the police and them say they lookin’ into it. I want her to come back home.”

Like Mitchell and Dunn, 37-year-old Lisa James from Kingston knows the horror of having a child go missing. Her 16-year-old daughter Nicola Watson, who attended the Greater Portmore High School, has been missing since the first week of July of this year.

“I am fed up and frustrated. I have no idea where she is because I would go and get her myself. We have no clue why she is gone and why she left. It ah stress me right now. We need her to come home,” James, also the mother of three younger children, said.

The parents and guardians of these missing children- Shaquille, Deidra, Dorraine, Nicola, Sashama and Baneisha – feel the quest to locate and bring them home is not rigorous enough on the side of the police. But the police say they are trying their best to reunite families.

Malcolm believes the public and the media should play a greater role in helping to find missing children.

“Until we start seeing the authorities putting the pictures of missing children on television or in the newspaper so that people can call in and help, parents like us are not going to be able to find our children and bring them home safely,” Malcolm said.

In the meantime, as the Montego Bay police continue their investigation into the disappearance of her grandchildren Shaquille and Deidra Medley, Ewan tells the Sunday Observer that she only hopes she will be able to keep the promise she made to herself: to one day find them safe and unharmed.

“I am not going to stop looking for them no matter what. I will continue praying and with the help of God, I will find them. I hold on to that.”