Sascha Wil­son

A res­i­dent was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured af­ter a house col­lapsed on him dur­ing a State-sanc­tioned de­mo­li­tion in which eight hous­es were de­stroyed in Point Fortin yes­ter­day. The man, iden­ti­fied on­ly as Mario, who was bleed­ing through his mouth had to be tak­en away, via am­bu­lance, to the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

That brought an abrupt halt to the de­mo­li­tion but the crew, in­volv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers, promised to re­turn to the squat­ting area of Fresh Gar­dens, off Ward Road, on Mon­day.

Res­i­dents said the de­mo­li­tion be­gan around 9 am. Al­though they were oc­cu­py­ing State lands, some res­i­dents said they had been there for over three years. They ac­cused the crew of not on­ly bull­doz­ing their homes, but "mash­ing up" their ma­te­r­i­al.

An­drew Ever­lyn, pres­i­dent of the Fresh Gar­den's com­mit­tee, said res­i­dents would not al­low them to break more hous­es.

De­scrib­ing the de­mo­li­tion as un­fair, he said some peo­ple had been oc­cu­py­ing the land for over three years. He said peo­ple would have in­vest­ed a lot of mon­ey in build­ing their hous­es. Ever­lyn said: "I am very per­turbed and an­noyed. These peo­ple who you see with their hous­es down were look­ing to build a life and get them­selves to­geth­er." He said he wants the peo­ple of Point Fortin to stand up against that in­jus­tice. De­von Guis­chard, whose home was de­mol­ished, said he had been liv­ing there for over two years.

"I now buy up a lit­tle ply to ex­tend my house be­cause Christ­mas com­ing up. I plant­i­ng ah lit­tle gar­den and thing." he said.

Point Fortin MP Paula Gopie-Scoon said she would seek a meet­ing with Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath to ad­dress the is­sue.

She said the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands had giv­en ap­proval to de­mol­ish the hous­es. Gopee-Scoon said the res­i­dents were squat­ting on State lands and that was il­le­gal.