A moth­er’s grief and pain al­most 13 years ago of los­ing her 10-month-old ba­by dur­ing a fire, was re­liv­ed on Wednes­day when her oth­er child suf­fered the same fate dur­ing a dead­ly fire at Beetham Gar­dens.

In 2007, Make­ba Mc In­tosh lost her 10-month-old ba­by when fire de­stroyed a house in To­co.

As those mem­o­ries of los­ing a child in 2007 con­tin­ued to etch in Mc In­tosh’s mind, the al­ready dis­traught moth­er lost her nine-year-old daugh­ter, Aniela But­ler, when fire broke out just af­ter 1.30 pm at a house on Sixth Street, Beetham Gar­dens.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the fire start­ed just af­ter 1.30 pm.

A re­port said an alarm was raised and the house was evac­u­at­ed. How­ev­er, it was on­ly af­ter they were all safe­ly out­side that those who were pre­vi­ous­ly in the house re­alised that Aniela was miss­ing. Res­i­dents at­tempt­ed to put out the fire but it was too late as it had al­ready spread quick­ly.

Aniela was a pupil of the Ram­panala­gas Pri­ma­ry School. She vis­it­ed her moth­er in Beetham Gar­dens for the Christ­mas hol­i­days and her moth­er kept her for two months ex­tra to help with her school­ing.

Makeba McIntosh, mother of Aniela Butler, who died in a fire at their 6th Street, Beetham Gardens home yesterday, interacts with Aneila’s stepfather Juman Ali.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Yes­ter­day, the griev­ing moth­er said, “My daugh­ter had a speech im­ped­i­ment, she could have walked and talked but some­times she did not like to do her school work and I brought her down for the Christ­mas from To­co to spend time with me. She was not do­ing her school work so I de­cid­ed to keep her for two months to do her school work, then I would have sent her back to her fa­ther who lives in To­co.”

Mc In­tosh, a se­cu­ri­ty guard, was at work in Port-of-Spain when she got a phone call to come home.

She said, “I got a call while on work that the room she was in caught fire and her step­fa­ther said he didn’t know what she was do­ing and they can­not find her and I was think­ing that she was still alive. That was the first re­port I got, it is af­ter a while on my way home the po­lice called me to tell me that Aniela died.”

Mc In­tosh said when she left for work in the morn­ing, Aniela was with her step­fa­ther, step­sis­ter, step-grand­moth­er and her sis­ter.

“I am con­fused as to what hap­pened,” she quick­ly added.

The front of the house was to­tal­ly de­stroyed.

She added, “Every­body is in a state of shock at this time, our fam­i­ly is dis­traught and every­body is cry­ing and her fa­ther is walk­ing up and down the streets af­ter hear­ing this news be­cause this is not the news that we want­ed to get.”

She said Aniela was a fun-lov­ing child and she will be missed.

An unidentified resident of Beetham Gardens feels the pain at the loss of nine hyear old Aniela Butler who died in a fire at her Sixthh Street, Beetham Gardens home, yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

“I feel hurt so much I don’t know how to feel right now with this news, be­cause I am miss­ing my child. I had ex­pec­ta­tions to come home to see her and it is bet­ter God take me rather than my child.”

Fire and po­lice of­fi­cials re­spond­ed and in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the cause of the fire are con­tin­u­ing.

— Re­port­ing by Ot­to Car­ring­ton