Maranatha students speak up as bomb threat forces school closure; deadly and dated bomb threats written on school wall

#Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands – October 23, 2018 – What if there really is a bomb?  It was the recurring question from students and teachers of Maranatha Academy who hovered outside of the buildings at the educational facility on Millennium Highway in Provo, hoping that the messages to their school were untrue. Those messages were noticed yesterday scribbled onto the wall.  Police turned up last night to take statements, we are told… but that was it. 

A female student said:  “I think they should have told us this from yesterday because we would not have had to go through this today.  If they found it out yesterday and they see the date, what if there was a real bomb. Are they really caring about our safety?”  In response to a question on the wait on Police before school could begin: “I feel the police really has let us down as a community and are not really doing their job, they don’t really care for us as the youth seeing that we have called them and they have not arrived.  As a young person in Blue Hills, they really let me down.”

A member of the Maranatha Student Council was also eager to share his thoughts when asked: “On behalf of the students of Maranatha, we are very disappointed in our own Police because you cannot have such a crucial emergency like people’s lives are in danger and you don’t even show up. It doesn’t make any sense, you’re not taking this serious and this could have led to people losing their lives.  If this is the Police we have then Turks and Caicos is heading into the wrong direction.”

Magnetic Media was alerted to the situation when a parent, furious about the ‘no show’ of police this morning at Maranatha contacted us to express her disappointment that there was no attention being paid to the matter by authorities; at least from her vantage point.

Our visit to Maranatha revealed that Police were still not on the scene and had not been since yesterday when they were first informed of the deadly threats.  Scribbled on the wall of the school – as you can see here – was a promise to blow up the school on October 23, 2018 which is today.  One of the messages said ‘Dear Maranatha, you are dead’.

A student pointed to the CCTV cameras across the street, she hoped Police would be able to check it for evidence of who could be behind the threat. We asked students if they thought the bomb threat was real.  

“I really don’t know, but I feel like it is real.”

One member of faculty called the matter of the bomb threat serious and was unable to say whether the police searched the premises.

Principal of Maranatha Academy, Renford Trail declined to comment but said children were being allowed to return home as he did not want to occupy any of the buildings until the Police gave him the okay.  He was still waiting on Police and that ‘okay’ when we left the school yard around 10 a.m.