'Rest in love': Vigil held after Rotorua child's death

Tributes outside the home where a child died on Sunday. Photo / Andrew Warner

Residents from houses near where a boy died in Rotorua on Sunday have pulled together, at a distance, to hold a vigil for him.

Deborah De Loree said she looked outside on Sunday morning to see police vehicles, fire engines and an ambulance on her street.

She later learned a child had died. A 27-year-old woman was charged with murder and appeared in Rotorua District via audio-visual link on Monday.

Tributes outside the Rotorua home where a child died on Sunday. Photo / Andrew Warner

The woman was granted interim name suppression and remanded in custody without plea to reappear in the High Court at Rotorua on September 17.

De Loree said: "There was a heaviness over the whole town, but we could feel it the most."

"We thought we'd set up a vigil and karakia for that place. We put up a post on Facebook and said we'd do a karakia at 5pm (Monday) and anyone around here could come to the end of their driveways and pay their respects to the little boy.

"People came out and did that and we had people bring flowers and chalk to write on the fence, candles, and balloons."

De Loree said while she had not previously had much interaction with other residents on the street, it was times like these that communities had to pull together.

"I think if we didn't do anything, it's still a sad situation, but there would've still been that heaviness over our neighbourhood.

Tributes outside the Rotorua home where a child died on Sunday. Photo / Andrew Warner

"A lot of us shed tears and I think just doing that together helped us a bit with healing and dealing with the whole situation. We were able to do it and share that time."

She said it was a shock to see so many emergency service vehicles on her street on Sunday morning.

"It was really freaky because we didn't know what had happened. It was scary."

De Loree said the way the community pulled together yesterday had inspired her to start a newsletter as a way of keeping the local community connected during the lockdown.