THIRTEEN inmates of the New Opportunity Corps could not be accounted for by the staff of the facility up to Friday morning.

The Guyana Chronicle was informed that the first of the 13 inmates escaped on Thursday; all were said to be between the ages of 15 and 17.

By early Friday morning, another set of inmates were recorded as missing from the facility and they range between the ages of 15 and 17 also.

Repeated efforts on Friday to contact officials at the Ministry of Social Protection, which has supervisory responsibility for the facility, proved futile.

This publication was told that the minister and the permanent secretary of the ministry were both out of town. The Chronicle could not confirm up to late yesterday, whether any of the children were accounted for.

The children were said to be from communities all across the country. In normal circumstances, when the inmates escape from custody, the police usually check with their parents as in many instances the children would escape and return home.

We were told that in the case of the Thursday morning escape, the teenagers were in the yard carrying out chores, when they made a dash for cover towards a bushy section of the facility which is not enclosed by a fence.

It should be noted that this is the same route which is usually used by the inmates to escape from the facility, as recorded in the past.

In the case of the Friday morning escape, the inmates reportedly escaped while the staff were sleeping.

There is no word as to whether the ministry has since launched an investigation, or if that would be done.

A 17-yr-old of Pamela Backdam, Mahdia; a 16-yr-old of 35 Avenue, Bartica; a 15-yr-old of Vigilance, East Coast Demerara; a 16-yr-old of Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara; a 16-yr-old of 10 Village, West Coast Berbice; a 15- yr-old of 59 Westbury Village, Essequibo Coast; a 17-yr-old of 59 Windmill Road Lethem, a 16-yr-old of 19 Tucville Squatting Area; a 16-year-old, of 82 Savannah Park, New Amsterdam, Berbice and a 16-yr-old of Buxton are among the escapees who left the facility on Thursday.

A 17-yr-old, 15-yr-old and another whose age was not stated, escaped on Friday morning.