Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

It was meant to be their first Christ­mas to­geth­er as a hap­py, unit­ed fam­i­ly.

But the dreams of Fazee­da Gabriel and two of her chil­dren–Le­an­dra Gabriel, 14, and Kyle Gabriel, ten–end­ed when they died in a fire ear­ly yes­ter­day. Gabriel, 34, the daugh­ter of Princes Town coun­cil­lor Nazrool Ali, was found hud­dled on the floor of their bed­room, cradling her chil­dren in her arms. Po­lice said she died around 3.15 am, while try­ing to save the chil­dren as they screamed from the cen­tre bed­room on the up­per floor of the house, lo­cat­ed at Bat­too Av­enue, Mara­bel­la. Her sec­ond daugh­ter Dian­dra Kris­tan, 12, a stu­dent of Par­vati Girls' High School, es­caped with cuts and bruis­es, while their step­fa­ther Daniel Bob­by Per­sad, suf­fered burns to 40 per cent of his body. Dian­dra jumped through the back win­dow af­ter forc­ing her­self through the bur­glarproof­ing, which trapped the fam­i­ly in­side the burn­ing house. Per­sad jumped through a side win­dow, be­fore hit­ting a shed and land­ing un­con­scious on the ground.

Ravi Dodough, 36, a ten­ant who lived down­stairs and his son Joshua, 13, man­aged to es­cape the flames un­hurt. Speak­ing at the scene of the fire, Dodough said he awoke af­ter hear­ing a loud crack­ling sound. He said he ran up­stairs and saw the liv­ing room en­gulfed in flames. Re­al­is­ing the house was pad­locked, Dodough snatched up a broom han­dle and be­gan smash­ing the glass win­dows. He said: "I screamed up Bob­by's name and he and Fazee­da stum­bled out. Bob­by was burnt and his skin was falling off. He could not find the keys for the bur­glarproof­ing. The chil­dren were bawl­ing for help and Fazee­da ran back in­side af­ter hear­ing them." The fire and screams alert­ed next-door neigh­bour Azad Mo­hammed who im­me­di­ate­ly pulled out a lad­der and fire hose to ex­tin­guish the blaze. Dur­ing an in­ter­view, Mo­hammed said he ran to the back of the house, propped the lad­der and be­gan soak­ing the back room where the two girls Le­an­dra and Dian­dra slept.

He said: "The en­tire room was ablaze and then I see the lit­tle girl run­ning. She squeezed through the bur­glarproof­ing be­cause she is tiny. But the oth­er chil­dren were in the cen­tre bed­room. I could not get to them." Fire­fight­ers ar­rived on the scene short­ly af­ter and man­aged to ex­tin­guish the flames. Po­lice said Gabriel and her chil­dren died from smoke in­hala­tion. Per­sad was rushed to hos­pi­tal where he re­mains ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion. Gabriel's fa­ther, Coun­cil­lor Ali, said it would have been the fam­i­ly's first Christ­mas to­geth­er. He said Gabriel worked as a cashier at Fens Store in Mara­bel­la, and broke up with her hus­band years ago. He said five months ago, she found new love with Per­sad. "They were look­ing for­ward to Christ­mas. She was sup­posed to go shop­ping with the chil­dren on Sat­ur­day...The chil­dren loved their step­fa­ther and he loved them," Ali said. Gabriel's co-work­ers said she at­tend­ed their Christ­mas par­ty hours be­fore the fire.

Neigh­bours de­scribed Gabriel and her fam­i­ly as hos­pitable and cheer­ful, say­ing they were the lights of the com­mu­ni­ty. Fire of­fi­cers said the fire may have been caused by an elec­tri­cal mal­func­tion.