Homes razed, church targeted in suspected arson attacks

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A se­ries of sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tacks across south Trinidad over the week­end has left a fam­i­ly dis­placed, a church shak­en, and mul­ti­ple prop­er­ties de­stroyed, as po­lice in­ves­ti­gate three sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in Clax­ton Bay, Siparia and San Fer­nan­do.

The most re­cent fire oc­curred on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon at Sut­ton Street, San Fer­nan­do, where a wood­en house was de­stroyed and three near­by homes dam­aged. Res­i­dents said the blaze broke out short­ly af­ter a po­lice op­er­a­tion at the prop­er­ty.

A source, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said the house had been oc­cu­pied by new ten­ants fol­low­ing the death of a Mus­lim cou­ple who lived there three years ago. Around 4 pm, of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a raid at the premis­es.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly an hour lat­er, flames were seen en­gulf­ing the struc­ture.

A man who op­er­at­ed a small food cart on the prop­er­ty said he lost every­thing in the blaze, in­clud­ing the cart, which was out­fit­ted with elec­tric­i­ty and two re­frig­er­a­tors.

“I don’t know how I will re­place what I lost,” he said, adding that the oc­cu­pants of the house are cur­rent­ly on hol­i­day and were ex­pect­ed to re­turn.

How­ev­er, a po­lice source de­nied any in­volve­ment in the fire, stat­ing that while il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties had been re­port­ed at the lo­ca­tion and a raid was car­ried out, of­fi­cers did not set the build­ing ablaze.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent on Fri­day night, a sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack tar­get­ed the Sa­cred Choice of Heav­en Mt Lebanon Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Church in Spring­vale, Clax­ton Bay. Quick ac­tion by the Fire Ser­vice pre­vent­ed sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the 81-year-old struc­ture.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the church had been se­cured ear­li­er in the week, but around 10 pm a dea­con re­ceived a call alert­ing him to a fire in­side the prayer area. Fire­fight­ers re­spond­ed swift­ly and ex­tin­guished the blaze. Sev­er­al plas­tic bot­tles con­tain­ing gaso­line were lat­er dis­cov­ered in­side the build­ing.

Neigh­bour Gree­ta Brown, 83, said she was alert­ed by her daugh­ter.

“I was asleep and my daugh­ter called to say there was a fire. I called the fire ser­vice,” she said.

De­spite be­ing near­by, Brown said she and oth­ers were un­able to in­ter­vene.

“It was two young ladies and me. I am 83—we could not do any­thing,” she added.

Brown, whose grand­moth­er once owned the church, said the build­ing holds deep sen­ti­men­tal val­ue.

“The church be­longed to my grand­moth­er, so if it had burnt, it would have been very dis­tress­ing,” she said, not­ing that on­ly a hand­ful of mem­bers still at­tend ser­vices reg­u­lar­ly.

In a state­ment, Bish­op Claudette To­by Greene de­scribed the at­tack as “deeply dis­turb­ing,” not­ing the church’s lega­cy of more than eight decades of ser­vice.

“Our min­istry is a sa­cred space—one of peace, refuge and uni­ty. To have that sanc­tu­ary threat­ened in this man­ner is deeply dis­tress­ing,” she said.

She praised the Fire Ser­vice for its prompt re­sponse and con­firmed that the church is co­op­er­at­ing ful­ly with in­ves­ti­ga­tors. De­spite the in­ci­dent, she said the con­gre­ga­tion re­mains stead­fast.

“Though the flames may touch the build­ing, they can­not con­sume the spir­it of God with­in His peo­ple. We re­main cov­ered, we re­main called, and we will con­tin­ue in love,” Greene added.

Mean­while, an­oth­er fire on Fri­day evening de­stroyed the home of Al­i­son Mc­Carthy and her com­mon-law hus­band Gre­go­ry Zamore at La Brea Trace, Siparia, leav­ing their fam­i­ly of sev­en home­less.

The fire be­gan around 7.20 pm. Mc­Carthy said she had left ear­li­er with their chil­dren when she re­ceived a call that the house was on fire.

“I think it was de­lib­er­ate… peo­ple were threat­en­ing to burn down the house and kill every­body,” she said, link­ing the at­tack to an on­go­ing land dis­pute.

Zamore said the fam­i­ly had re­port­ed re­peat­ed threats to po­lice in the days lead­ing up to the fire.

“Just the day be­fore, there were threats to burn down the house,” he said.

The blaze de­stroyed all of the fam­i­ly’s be­long­ings, in­clud­ing ap­pli­ances, fur­ni­ture, cloth­ing and le­gal doc­u­ments tied to an on­go­ing High Court mat­ter. Zamore, who is un­able to work due to past in­juries, said the loss has been dev­as­tat­ing.

The cou­ple’s five chil­dren, aged be­tween three and 12, are now stay­ing at the Quar­ry Vil­lage Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre as they strug­gle to re­build.

“We don’t re­al­ly have any­where to go… every­thing we had is gone,” Mc­Carthy said.

The in­ci­dent has al­so resur­faced painful mem­o­ries for the fam­i­ly. Zamore re­called that his un­cle, Alexan­der Robin­son, who once lived on the same prop­er­ty, dis­ap­peared in 2004 and was nev­er found.

Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to all three fires. No one has been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dents.

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist the Zamore fam­i­ly can call 304-4846 or do­nate to Al­i­son Mc­Carthy’s Re­pub­lic Bank Siparia chequing ac­count #270040484701.