‘We will not be silenced’: Candlelight vigil in Brooklyn honors Adrianna Younge as global calls for justice grow

With candles flickering in the evening breeze and voices rising in songs of hope and remembrance, hundreds gathered Monday night in Brooklyn to honor Adrianna Younge — the 11-year-old Guyanese schoolgirl whose tragic death has become a powerful symbol of grief, outrage, and a global demand for justice.

Adrianna’s body was found last week in the swimming pool of the Double Day Hotel on Guyana’s west coast, shortly after she vanished during a family outing. Her death — ruled a drowning by a joint autopsy team from Guyana, the U.S., and Barbados — remains shrouded in mystery, and her community is demanding answers.

“She was only a child,” said Melissa Atwell Holder, a vigil organizer and diaspora activist, her voice trembling with emotion. “They say she drowned — but did she drown in that pool? Because that pool was searched, over and over again. And she wasn’t there. So we ask: when did she die? And how?”

The Brooklyn vigil came just days after another was held in Queens, both part of a rising wave of calls among Caribbean nationals in the United States. Similar demonstrations are taking place across Guyana, Barbados, and the United Kingdom, united by grief, fury, and a determination to see accountability.

Adrianna’s family and villagers in the community of Tuschen believe she was murdered, possibly as part of a ritualistic act. Initial police reports later retracted claimed she left the hotel willingly with an adult man, a statement her relatives called a blatant cover-up to protect the hotel’s powerful owners.

Public backlash was swift. A regional police commander was placed on leave. The hotel — once the scene of a similar death in 2012 — was burned to the ground, and it remains unclear whether the blaze was set by protesters or insiders.

Rickford Burke, president of the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID), and community advocate and founder of United Bridge Builders Mission Bonita Montique addressed the crowd, calling for sweeping police reform and justice for Adrianna and others whose deaths have rattled the country.

“This is not just about Adrianna,” Burke said. “This is about a pattern of injustice that keeps repeating itself in Guyana and we will not stand by quietly.”

In recent months, Guyana has been rocked by a string of high-profile killings. Among them: the police-related deaths of Ronaldo Peters and Keon Fogenay; the brutal murder of Waveny LaCruz and her daughters, Maline and Sueann, allegedly by Waveny’s husband; and the fatal shootings of Marissa Beete and Kenesha Marie Juman Vaughn, both killed by intimate partners.

These tragedies have triggered a national reckoning — with citizens demanding accountability, better policing, and robust protections for women and children.

“They think this will go away. It won’t,” said Amecia Simon, Adrianna’s mother, standing in front of a portrait of her daughter surrounded by flowers and candlelight. I will not rest until the truth is known and justice is served.”

Simon shared that the mother of Sideek Juman — the man killed at the same hotel in 2012 — contacted her after Adrianna’s death. “She told me, ‘I never got justice for my son, but I will stand with you until you get it for your daughter.’”

As the vigil ended, the crowd held a moment of silence. Some wept quietly. Others whispered prayers and songs.

“This little girl’s life mattered,” said Atwell Holder. “We say her name tonight and every night until justice is done — not just for Adrianna, but for all the lives lost. We will not be silenced.”