ONCE more the nation is cast into a darkness that words scarcely penetrate — the unbearable grief that follows the slaughter of children.

Last Saturday, in Denham Town, three-year-old Jayce Pinnock was cut down in a hail of gunfire as criminals attacked his home without mercy. His father, gravely wounded, succumbed on Monday.

A few weeks before, four-year-old Saniyah O’Brien met a similarly merciless end when gunmen ambushed a vehicle in Land Settlement and sprayed it with bullets. She and her father were rushed to hospital; she never drew breath again. Two other children sat in that same vehicle and now live with memories no child should ever carry.

Jamaica does not hold a monopoly on evil. Every nation wrestles with those who extinguish life as casually as one blows out a candle. Yet knowing this offers no comfort. After each atrocity the same question rises from broken parents and stunned communities — Why? And always the silence answers, because no explanation can justify the murder of innocence.

There is no acceptable reason for the killing of any human being, far less a child whose only crime was existence. Those responsible must be found, prosecuted, and punished to the fullest extent of the law. We hold firmly to the view that anyone capable of erasing a young life forfeits the right to walk freely among those who respect life.

Tragically, these horrors are not new to us. We remember nine-year-old Gabriel King; we remember Shanika Anderson; we remember Yetanya Francis; we remember Danielle Rowe. The names differ; the agony does not. Parents everywhere now live with bedrooms untouched, toys unmoved, birthdays transformed into memorials. That is a torment that does not fade — it only settles into the bones.

What is perhaps most chilling is not merely the brutality, but the quiet around it — voices in this society that are loud on countless matters, some nonsensical, yet hushed when confronted with the pillaging of our children.

Unfortunately, violence has seeped into our national bloodstream so deeply that we risk mistaking abnormality for routine.

Statistics only sharpen the horror: Children murdered, children shot, children surviving with wounds that will never entirely heal. Even schools — once sanctuaries — are forced to rethink security as though innocence itself requires armed protection. Safeguarding our young will cost money, yes, but the value of a child cannot be weighed against a budget line.

Still, stronger gates and guards alone will not save us. These crimes grow from a culture in which too many believe disputes must end in bloodshed. Until that belief is uprooted we will continue counting coffins smaller than they should ever be.

The remedy demands more than policing. Communities must reclaim their moral authority; Government, Opposition, Church, and civic leadership must act together to rebuild respect for human life. We must continue to teach, insist, and model that conflict is not war, and that dignity cannot coexist with brutality.

It will be difficult. It will be slow. But surrender would mean accepting that our children will continue to die — and that is a future no nation worthy of survival can tolerate.

Indeed, our nation must still heed the call of Hear the Children’s Cry for reward from the monsters among us, even if money is no consolation.