There will be a wake on Wednesday, December 5, at # 6 Gill Street. There will be a funeral on Thursday, December 6, at the Anglican Cathedral on Regent Street at 2:00 p.m. The tears are for young Feron Felix, 16.
On Friday, November 30, Feron, a part time employee of the Atlantic Bank, received the exciting news that he had been promoted as a full-time employee. On Friday night, just hours later, his life was robbed from him in the mad streets of Southside Belize City.
According to his mother, Therese Felix, who lost her son, Tyron, to gun violence last year, she sent Feron on an errand to a nearby shop that night. When the youth reached the Port Loyola Pre-school, he met one of his close friends, Cordell Flores, aged 19. The teenagers stood in front of the school a short while, chatting. Flores said Feron told him he had to go home early, because he had to report to work in the morning.
At 7:15 p.m. gunshots were heard across Port Loyola. When the sounds died, both youth lay on the ground in a pool of blood.
Neighbors raced to the scene, and hurriedly transported the young men to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH). Cordell Flores was “lucky.” He suffered a single gunshot above his ankle. He was treated at the hospital and released. Feron was shot twice in the back, once in the right hand, and once on the left foot. He died after undergoing emergency surgery.
We repeat – there will be a wake on Wednesday, December 5, at # 6 Gill Street. There will be a funeral on Thursday, December 6, at the Anglican Cathedral on Regent Street at 2:00 p.m. The tears are for young Feron Felix, 16 years.
For his mother, Therese Felix, his father, Rudolph “Backe” Card, and his sister and three brothers, the tears haven’t dried yet for Feron’s older brother, Tyron, who was shot down barely five yards from where Feron was murdered, on Mother’s Day, May 14, 2006, just a little over one year ago.
The Felix family did not respond last year with calls of vengeance for the life of Tyron. Instead, Therese Felix founded Mothers Organized for Peace (MOP), an organization that has worked tirelessly to end the violence in their neighborhood.
It didn’t pay off, at least for her. Tonight, while the tears have not yet dried for one son, fresh tears fall for another. Oh woe, Belize.
Therese Felix says she will not stop her campaign for peace. Tonight, she seeks answers to some very hard questions: where are these guns coming from that murdered her two boys? What action will the police and government take to address this crime and violence epidemic?
Therese says she will be campaigning to take down the fence that runs between the basketball court and the pre-school, where the cowards who murdered her sons were hiding. If it can happen to my child, it will happen to another mother’s child as well, she believes.
One of Feron’s aunts, Desiree, told Amandala that she believes the person who killed her nephew is a coward, who can’t face problems. A little misunderstanding, she said, should not be solved with a gun. She believes that too many mothers out there encourage their children to do wrong.
Amandala also spoke to the president of MOP, Erwin X, who said that Feron’s death was a shock. Feron was an ambitious and dedicated young man, he told us; he definitely was not a gang member. This will not stop the overwhelming and difficult task and the duty to speak towards peace, and urge a ceasefire among the young black and rival gangs. Our mission is to promote life, and not death, he said.
Apart from his parents and siblings, Feron Felix is survived by many aunts, uncles and cousins, and a host of relatives and friends.
This story was investigated by Angella Wiltshire.