Ralph Ban­warie

Sev­er­al fam­i­lies in Biche say they now live in fear as crim­i­nal groups con­tin­ue to burn hous­es and fire on homes in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, leav­ing res­i­dents trau­ma­tised and un­able to sleep. Re­tirees and se­nior women are among those af­fect­ed, with vil­lagers claim­ing crim­i­nals en­ter prop­er­ties in the ear­ly hours with con­tain­ers of petrol to burn hous­es or shoot at them.

One res­i­dent said it was “by God’s grace” they were awake dur­ing an at­tempt­ed ar­son.

They said they alert neigh­bours or call po­lice to scare off at­tack­ers. “We are un­der duress, liv­ing in fear, trau­ma­tised and our lives are tor­tured,” one res­i­dent said, adding that el­der­ly women have been as­sault­ed dur­ing break-ins.

Res­i­dents blamed lim­it­ed po­lice re­sources, say­ing of­fi­cers have on­ly one ve­hi­cle and are short-staffed. They said the Di­az fam­i­ly, who in­clude an autis­tic child, have been tar­get­ed re­peat­ed­ly. Around 2 am to­day, the fam­i­ly’s home was rid­dled with bul­lets, forc­ing them to scram­ble for safe­ty. No one was in­jured.

“We are liv­ing in fear, these crim­i­nals are tor­tur­ing us and mak­ing our lives mis­er­able,” said 60-year-old re­tiree Mr Di­az. He be­lieves the fam­i­ly is be­ing tar­get­ed be­cause crim­i­nals ac­cuse them of wit­ness­ing a mur­der in Biche, even though, he said, his wife is not a wit­ness and nev­er gave a state­ment. He said the fam­i­ly on­ly looks out for neigh­bours.

The fam­i­ly plead­ed for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion, say­ing, “We are all ner­vous and can­not say when the crim­i­nals will strike again.”

A vil­lager said crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in one part of Biche has surged and claimed that al­though the state of emer­gency re­mains ac­tive, crim­i­nals con­tin­ue to roam. He said crim­i­nals al­so come from as far as Arou­ca.

At­tempts were first made to burn the home of a fam­i­ly of 16, forc­ing them to flee be­fore their house was even­tu­al­ly de­stroyed by fire. An­oth­er set of at­tacks then fo­cused on the Di­az fam­i­ly’s small wood­en home.

Cam­era footage cap­tured an ar­son­ist in the first at­tempt. The sec­ond at­tempt, in­volv­ing two masked at­tack­ers car­ry­ing a con­tain­er of what seemed to be petrol, was thwart­ed when a neigh­bour spot­ted them. Po­lice re­spond­ed, but no sus­pects were held.

In the third at­tempt, an at­tack­er reached the porch and doused it with kerosene, but his lighter failed. Di­az said he woke to the strong smell of kerosene and the sound of a lighter click­ing. When he looked out­side, he saw a masked man who ran in­to near­by bush­es. His fam­i­ly alert­ed po­lice.

A quick re­sponse by WPC To­b­by and PC Pierre led to the ar­rest of three sus­pects, aged 18 to 22, all from Arou­ca.

Di­az asked, “Is this right where fam­i­lies have to keep run­ning for their life?”

Res­i­dents said this same fam­i­ly had pre­vi­ous­ly helped stop two at­tacks on el­der­ly women. In one, they re­spond­ed to screams and stopped a man at­tempt­ing to rape an 83-year-old neigh­bour, pro­vid­ing cam­era footage to po­lice. In an­oth­er, they res­cued a se­nior cit­i­zen be­ing beat­en and stran­gled by an in­trud­er, de­tain­ing the sus­pect un­til of­fi­cers ar­rived.

“Why this fam­i­ly? What have they done? What are they in­volved in?” Di­az asked.

Vil­lagers al­so al­leged cor­rup­tion with­in the Biche Po­lice Sta­tion, claim­ing a se­nior of­fi­cer is “in pock­ets with crim­i­nals” and that oth­er of­fi­cers who chal­lenge him are trans­ferred. They called for more pa­trols, bet­ter polic­ing and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice’s in­ter­ven­tion “be­fore they be­come in­sane.”

They said po­lice failed to take a re­port af­ter this morn­ing’s shoot­ing. Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the scene and col­lect­ed sev­er­al spent shells be­fore leav­ing.