However, mourners, many personally touched by the seven-year-old boy, resolved to ensure that children like him not meet a similar fate.

Ragged and malnourished, Akeem was discovered wandering the city streets nearly six months ago. He passed away last Saturday at the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he was being treated for a debilitating illness.

Yesterday at Sandy’s Funeral Home, those paying tribute all agreed his life had ended much too soon. They urged that everything be done to ensure that children like him and whose stories have not been told, are provided with proper food, housing and medication to live the life that they deserve.

“Akeem died a senseless death, way before his time,” said volunteer, Diane Upchurch in her eulogy, “...because all that could have been done for him wasn’t. [Don’t] let another child die in vain, remember Akeem.”

Upchurch, a member of the United Women for Special Children, reflected on the time she had spent with the child since February, when he became part of her life.

“He could be macho, even demanding, and at the same time just a little boy who wanted to be loved and cared for,” she said, noting that in the end, the day before his death “he fought a good fight and was as brave and uncomplaining a child as I have ever seen, still trying to do things on his own for as long as he could.”

Akeem was later that day put on oxygen, slipped into a coma and died early Saturday morning.

“... He is with his heavenly father now and will never experience hunger or pain no more.”

In her tribute, Stabroek News journalist Samantha Alleyne described the child as the victim of a system that did not place as high a value on human life as it should. Pointing out that there was need for real change, she said from Akeem everyone should all learn a lesson and strive to do something to help.

“Today, as I stand here I am praying that little Akeem’s short, brutish life will not be forgotten and instead will open eyes to many who sit pretty thinking that all we should do is make a little donation here and there. We need to walk the walk and talk the talk, and pledge to ourselves that we would make a difference in at least one life where it is really needed.”

Akeem’s body lay in a casket at the centre of the chapel, flanked by friends, relatives, nurses and other well-wishers. Some of their faces were damp, soaked by streams of tears, while others were quietly outraged by the events leading up to the boy’s death.

Many like Audrey Robertson, overcome by a mother’s instinct, came because they were saddened by the news of the child’s death. According to her, despite the crisis in which Guyana finds itself, nothing should be put in front of a child’s needs.

Akeem Trotman was admitted to the hospital in February of this year, after he was brought to this newspaper’s premises by a man who said he had found the child begging on the street.