Pedro Valerio Tun, 52, of San Andres Village, Corozal, who was almost stabbed to death this week, spent his New Year’s Day recovering at the Northern Regional Hospital in Orange Walk Town after he was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition.

Police said that on New Year’s Eve, Tun was socializing with a man behind the Chuecko Bar, in Corozal Town, when the man demanded money from him to buy rum. Tun refused, and that was when the man stabbed him with a butcher knife in the lower part of his abdomen and fled the scene.

Police found Tun bleeding heavily; he was rushed to the Corozal Hospital after which he was taken to the Northern Regional Hospital in a critical state.

Police have since launched a search for the assailant, who remains at large.

According to Que Pasa Corozal, an online Corozal newspaper, a group of local drunkards who love to drink overproof rum usually hang out in the area where the incident happened.