Over the past nine months, three children under the age of five have died in separate road crashes in Saint Lucia. Rikki Samuel, Yvonne Jules and Kervil Lawrence each lost their lives in different situations, but all three were young lives cut short on the island’s roads. Their deaths are part of a larger road safety issue, raising questions about where crashes are happening and how often certain areas are involved in fatal incidents.
Four-year-old Rikki Samuel was the first.
On October 25, 2025, Rikki was travelling with his father when they were involved in a three-vehicle collision near the Hewanorra International Airport and Marine Base. Eleven people were injured. Rikki, a kindergarten student at Banse La Grace Combined School, did not survive. Police later charged Clarence Vigier of Belle Vue, Vieux Fort, with causing death by dangerous driving in connection with the collision.
Yvonne Jules was also just four.
She was among three people killed on February 24 when the minibus they were travelling in left the roadway at Mc Diarmed, also known as Majomel, in Laborie, and plunged over a precipice.
Emergency personnel responding to the scene found that Yvonne and the two adults travelling with her had sustained major injuries. All three were pronounced dead at the scene.
Then came Kervil Lawrence.
On July 22, the five-year-old was travelling with three other people when their vehicle veered off the roadway at Il Pirata, Vieux Fort, and crashed into a tree.
Two adults and two young boys were involved. Kervil, a kindergartener at the Piaye Combined School, succumbed to his injuries. The other three occupants survived with injuries.
Rikki was four. Yvonne was four. Kervil was five.
Two of those deaths, Rikki’s and Kervil’s, also draw attention to another troubling aspect of Saint Lucia’s recent road fatalities: the stretch of road running through the Il Pirata area toward Hewanorra International Airport.
They were not the only young lives lost there.
In January, 24-year-old Dayna Tobierre died after the vehicle she was driving left the road and crashed into a tree at Sandy Beach. Ten days later, Viclann Joseph, in his early 20s, died in a head-on collision at Il Pirata involving his car and a minibus. Several others were injured.
With Rikki’s death in October and Kervil’s in July bookending those incidents, four young people have died in separate crashes along that stretch of road in nine months.
These deaths are part of a larger and increasingly troubling situation on Saint Lucia’s roads.
At the most recent police press conference earlier this month, Superintendent Troy Lamontagne, who is in charge of Road and Traffic Investigations, revealed that, as of June 30, Saint Lucia had recorded 14 road fatalities for the year. Kervil’s death took that figure to 15.
However, that number rose to 16 on Sunday, after 32-year-old Marchand, Castries resident Andrez Forde died when the vehicle he was travelling in veered off the road and plunged over a precipice in Au Pos, Anse La Raye.
Lamontagne described the situation on the island’s roads as a “serious” issue, also pointing to a noticeable gender disparity among those being killed, with males accounting for the overwhelming majority of road fatalities.
