Sto­ries by Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter
sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt
   

In­stead of hold­ing a memo­r­i­al ser­vice on the sec­ond an­niver­sary of her broth­er’s death, a Mara­bel­la woman was left in tears af­ter her home was fire­bombed.

Niki­ta Wild­man’s house was one of three at East Bayshore de­stroyed in the ar­son at­tack, while a fourth house was par­tial­ly dam­aged.

The fire be­gan short­ly be­fore mid­night on Mon­day at Wild­man’s home and quick­ly spread to the oth­er hous­es.

As her eyes welled with tears yes­ter­day, Wild­man, 38, said her fam­i­ly had re­ceived sev­er­al threats. No one was home when the fire was start­ed but they have video footage of the house be­ing fire­bombed.

Her broth­er, At­i­ba Wild­man, was shot to death on May 21, 2022.

Wild­man is now stay­ing in a gal­vanise and ply­board makeshift struc­ture, while her 17-year-old son and 23-year-old niece are stay­ing else­where.

She ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to re­lo­cate her to an­oth­er com­mu­ni­ty.

“This will be a re­cur­ring sit­u­a­tion be­cause they at­tacked my broth­er. One is dead. They keep at­tack­ing the oth­er one and for my safe­ty, I don’t think I will be safe. All I need is for the Gov­ern­ment to re­lo­cate me some­where so I can be safe,” she begged.

Wild­man’s next-door neigh­bour, Kath­leen Joseph, said she and a friend were at home when she smelt smoke. They ran out of the house but could not save any­thing.

“If I was a hard sleep­er, I per­ish in that house, me and my friend,” she said.

Joseph, who sells clothes and oth­er items, es­ti­mat­ed her loss­es to be around $500,000. She was al­so not sat­is­fied with the re­sponse of the fire of­fi­cers.

“They did not come in a right tim­ing be­cause if they came in time, I be­lieve I would have been able to save some stuff. Every­thing I do­ing and I work for in life, every­thing I work for just gone, so I come like I am a des­ti­tute in life. I have noth­ing,” she said.

Her son lived with her. They have since been stay­ing with a neigh­bour.

The third house gut­ted by fire be­longed to 38-year-old fish­er­man Vish­nu Shah, who was asleep when neigh­bours raised an alarm, telling him that Joseph’s house was on fire and the flames were spread­ing to his house.

He and his neigh­bours tried ex­tin­guish­ing the fire with buck­ets of wa­ter.

The home of Shan­ice Joseph, 28, a casi­no work­er, which is ad­ja­cent to Shah’s prop­er­ty, was par­tial­ly burnt.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the fire are con­tin­u­ing.