IN JAMAICA: 100 Years, 100 Murders - Growing Up In The Killing Fields Of Denham Town...."I know about 20 persons right 'round here who have been killed," one 12-year-old girl said...."I ask God to protect me from all the perils and danger. Anytime I hear the gunshots, anywhere I am, I get flat, and I pray while I am flat,"....For another 13-year-old boy, the guidance counsellor at his school encouraged him to talk about the more than 25 violent deaths he knows of.

Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer Published: Sunday | May 4, 2014 

Hundreds of children on Easter holiday break were out in the streets of Denham Town, one of Kingston's many violent inner-city communities.

The decibel level of the noise from their play can do serious damage to the eardrum.

Corporal Fitz Ridge holds the hand of a
child in Denham Town recently. - File

The streets are their playground. That is when they get a break from the trigger-happy, gun-toting criminals firing high-powered weapons in a community where nearly everyone is hustling or unemployed.

Beneath the laughter, however, the children carry the heavy burden of violence in their youthful days. Emotional scars which will mark them for life.

In one small area, less than a quarter of an acre, eight children with a combined age of 100 years - the youngest at nine and the oldest 14 - told The Sunday Gleaner that they have already seen, or have knowledge of, more violent crimes than their years combined.

The violence involved neighbours, close family members and even friends, who have been injured or killed by the gun, knives or machetes.

REGULAR OUTBREAKS OF VIOLENCE

Violence, to them, is as common as breathing, and "getting flat" (lying on the ground quickly) at the sound of gunfire is like a game for nearly all of them. The sound of police sirens is the signal of normality.

"I know about 20 persons right 'round here who have been killed," one 12-year-old girl said.

The nonchalance with which the information was reported was as 'normal' as playing with friends, and appears to be the new normal for children in violent inner-city communities.

For one 14-year-old high-school student, who also knows more than 20 persons who have been killed, her best friend is numbered among the victims.

"I ask God to protect me from all the perils and danger. Anytime I hear the gunshots, anywhere I am, I get flat, and I pray while I am flat," said the 14-year-old, with her eyes reflecting pain, which one so young should not be shouldering.

"I don't think they are really after children, because children are in their houses at nights and the shootings mostly happen at nights when the adults are out. I believe it's a big-people war that children get caught in," she added.

The presence of the police is her only comfort - most times.

One 13-year-old high-school boy counted more than 10 persons he knew who have been killed. more