The mother of 9-year-old Sidy Fofana is grieving the lost of her loving son as family from all over is around for support.
Recounting the moments she discovered her son wasn’t upstairs at his uncle’s apartment, but dead on the scaffold of their 40 story apartment building located at 20 Richmond Plaza yesterday evening leaves a lot of questions to be answered.
“The police knocked on the door asking if anyone was missing,” said the boy’s mother, Sanata Diakite. She then called upstairs to his uncle, Boubacar Fonfana, to account for him only to discover he wasn’t there either.
His uncle, Boubacar Fofana, sent him with $10 to get some Chinese food and he never came back.
Sidy’s former daycare teacher, Jaqueline Baker, was working downstairs when she saw security running over to the area and heard that someone had fallen. There was still speculation about who had fallen when she saw his mother later in passing.
“I actually saw her; she passed by me on the phone and I waved at her. At the time we didn’t know. She didn’t know,” said Baker.
Later they would discover it was the beloved fourth grader. Now the family waits for the autopsy report to come back tomorrow before beginning to plan his burial and hopefully it will answer some questions about what happened.
Throughout this tragedy those who knew him have expressed how much he loved his family, loved to laugh and was so kind.
“I made him laugh, he made me laugh. He would come to my house all the time,” said Boubacar.
He also spent a lot of time playing with his older brother who is 12-years-old, and enjoying watching their favorite soccer team the Manchester United on television.
Along with being very loving he was also smart. “He was smart and interacted with all the kids,” said Baker who met him when he was four-years-old in her daycare class.
“He loved math and science in school,” said Fofana about her son who attended Academy Success Charter School in Harlem where his older sister would take him every day. “My second daughter is the one who takes him to school every day so it has been very hard for her.”
Through this tragedy prayer has become the answer in trying to heal from such a loss.
“Just pray, keeping praying, let everybody pray for us,” said Boubacar.
