Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

A Cou­va man is dead and three oth­ers were hos­pi­talised af­ter their home was fire­bombed yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Dead is Ty­rone Fos­ter, 25, a ter­mi­nal work­er on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

Fos­ter, who is al­so known as Stephon, suc­cumbed to in­juries while try­ing to es­cape from a fire at his Anand Yankaran Ex­ten­sion Street home in the HDC’s Ex­change Vil­lage Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment just af­ter 3 am.

His un­cle, Lester Fos­ter, girl­friend Lay­la Richards and moth­er Lor­na Cuffie-Fos­ter were al­so bad­ly burnt in the at­tack and were be­ing treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal last evening.

In a phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, a friend of Lor­na, who was with her at the hos­pi­tal but did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said she was un­able to speak and was in ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain.

Rocky Daniel, 57, who lives in a du­plex op­po­site Fos­ter’s home, said he be­lieved a Molo­tov cock­tail was tossed in­to the first floor of Fos­ter’s du­plex.

Daniel said three sur­vivors were res­cued by the fire­men who broke in­to the build­ing.

“I was up­stairs and I hear ‘boom’, as if some­body pelt some­thing, by the time I look out­side, I see the house on fire so I say ‘De house on fire’ and ah run down­stairs, open the door, put on the light and ah grab the hose and ah start to run with the hose and start to ting wa­ter. Ty­rone was by the door and bawl­ing Rocky…Rocky ah­hh, ahh. I say boy ah com­ing, ah com­ing, ah com­ing. When I reach it, I get­ting prob­lem with wa­ter from the pump.”

Daniel said neigh­bours joined the ef­forts to douse the flame be­fore the T&T Fire Ser­vice ar­rived around 10 min­utes lat­er. How­ev­er, they could not save Fos­ter, who could not make it through the bur­glar-proofed doors and win­dows.

An­oth­er neigh­bour, Stephen­son Ram­lochan, 57, said last De­cem­ber the fam­i­ly was at­tacked and their house was stoned down. He said the as­sailants broke sev­er­al win­dows in the house and stoned a car parked in the yard. Ram­lochan said the area is a qui­et one and he doesn’t know why the fam­i­ly was at­tacked.

Fos­ter’s body was re­moved at 5 am. The scene was vis­it­ed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Fire Ser­vice, Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion and staff of the Cou­va South MP’s of­fice.

HDC re­sponds

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) said it un­der­stands the fire start­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2.30 am.

It said while the cause of the fire was yet to be de­ter­mined, the HDC will con­duct checks to de­ter­mine the ex­tent of dam­age to the build­ing, in­clud­ing wa­ter dam­age to the ad­ja­cent units.

It said the HDC’s sub­sidiary, the Fa­cil­i­ties Es­tate Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (FEM­CoL), will en­sure the unit is re­me­di­at­ed, fol­low­ing the TTFS’ re­port, and that the fam­i­ly is re­ferred to the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices for coun­selling.

Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Camille Robin­son-Reg­is thanked the TTFS for its swift re­sponse in res­cu­ing the vic­tims and bring­ing them to safe­ty. She al­so thanked them for ex­tin­guish­ing the fire and pre­vent­ing it from reignit­ing or spread­ing to oth­er units. She ex­pressed con­do­lences to Ms Fos­ter and her fam­i­ly for the loss of their rel­a­tive and stands ready to as­sist the fam­i­ly in their time of need.

HDC chair­man Noel Gar­cia and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane al­so ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the dis­placed fam­i­ly and of­fered con­do­lences.