Belize City Man Fatally Stabbed After Carnival in Orange Walk, Police Seek Suspect

A Belize City man was killed on Saturday night in Orange Walk Town just a few hours after the carnival ended. Twenty-three-year-old Alwin Arnold Vasquez was walking with his relatives on the Belize Corozal Road when they got into an argument with a man. During the altercation, Vasquez was stabbed in the abdomen. He was taken to the Northern Regional Hospital for treatment and died shortly after. Assistance Commissioner of Police Hilberto Romero, says that, at this time, police have no suspects.  

ACP Hilberto Romero, Officer Commanding Eastern Division: “On Saturday the 21st day of September 2024 around 9:20pm Orange Walk police visited the Northern Regional Hospital where they found Alwin Arnold with stab wound injuries. Thereafter he succumbed to his injuries. Information received that Alwin Arnold was at Orange Walk when he got into a fight with several persons one of which inflicted a stab wound injury to him. We have no suspects for this stabbing at this time. We do not know. We know a lot of persons were consuming alcoholic beverages. It was the carnival and fights started and this is where this person was stabbed. They were in the area at the time and that is all we have, some fight erupted and that is what led to the stabbing. It was a part of the celebrations they were having with the carnival. We have limited information, that is all we have at this time. Investigators are on the ground trying to get further information.”

Meanwhile, Vasquez’s brother Stephen Bain, says that the family needs answers because as far as he knew, his brother was not the type to be out picking fights.

Stephen Bain, Brother of Alwin Vasquez: “About nine o’clock or minutes to nine I received a call from my young brother explaining about a scuffle that my other younger brother got into in the Orange Walk district after the carnival. He told me that he was in surgery and so I told him to stay with the doctor and find out all the relevant information we need and I’ll be coming up shortly to meet with him. About maybe half an hour to an hour time he called back and told me that he had succumbed to his injury. He was just a calm cool guy, he wasn’t in no gang affiliation and those things. He always sticks to himself, when the little celebrations come up he tries to participate and celebrations he likes the party, we like to free up and enjoy ourselves but he’s not a person that would go pick a quarrel or fight with somebody just like that. He’s always calm and cool and just loves everybody and wants to enjoy with everybody. The police are just saying that they’re still investigating that’s all we know up to now. We haven’t received any feedback if they found this guy or if they know who this guy is, we don’t know anything like that. We just know the police is still investigating that’s all they told us.”

Reporter: Sir, right now you guys are really hoping for some answers.

Stephen Bain, Brother of Alwin Vasquez:  “Yes yes. Definitely. We need a little closure to what really transpired and who did it.”

Vasquez was one of three people who were stabbed in Orange Walk on Saturday.