Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Wheel­chair-bound Ju­lia Ali is in ur­gent need of med­ical at­ten­tion.

Ali, who has no legs, has re­mained im­pris­oned at her Ica­cos home as large pools of stag­nant wa­ter cov­er most of the area. The wa­ter which has trapped res­i­dents at Sa­van­nah Trace and Lovers' Lane since heavy rains on Oc­to­ber 3, is in­fest­ed with worms, snakes and caimans. A car­pet of green al­gae al­so cov­ered the wa­ter. Ali, 34, whose legs were am­pu­tat­ed in 2004, yes­ter­day said she had not been able to keep her doc­tor's ap­point­ments. The dis­traught moth­er suf­fers from lu­pus and has to vis­it the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal reg­u­lar­ly for out­pa­tient care. Say­ing she con­tin­u­ous­ly begs God to help her find a bet­ter place to live, Ali said: "Be­fore the floods my son could have wheeled me to the sa­van­nah.

"Now all I could do is stay here and watch. That wa­ter smells ter­ri­ble but we get a lot of pret­ty wild birds eat­ing the worms and in­sects from the wa­ter." A caiman and a snake, Ali said, al­so were dis­cov­ered in her liv­ing room. "We get a lot of mos­qui­toes and it is re­al­ly un­bear­able to stay here," she added. Her son, Rasheed, who at­tends the Point Fortin Sec­ondary School, al­so ex­pressed his frus­tra­tion. He ex­plained to ac­cess his home, he has to walk along wood­en planks, placed pre­car­i­ous­ly on top of rub­ber tyres and con­crete blocks. Res­i­dents said the on­ly way to get to the main road is through the floods.

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh walks on a wood­en plank to ac­cess res­i­dents ma­rooned by re­cent floods.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Shahi­da Ram­bir, said they had to wear rub­ber boots to wade through the wa­ter. "We are hop­ing the floods would sub­side. Life has been tough for every­one here," Ram­bir said. Ma­hadeo Bun­see, who was spot­ted walk­ing through the wa­ter car­ry­ing a box of pam­pers, said his 19-month-old daugh­ter, Re­an­na, was ill and it was dif­fi­cult to ac­cess med­ical help. Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros, Fitzroy Beache, who has been man­u­al­ly clear­ing wa­ter cours­es since the floods, said it may take sev­er­al days be­fore the wa­ter ran off. He said the wa­ter nor­mal­ly rose and fell with the tides.

More aid says Ra­mad­hars­ingh

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh donned boots yes­ter­day and vis­it­ed Ali and her neigh­bours and promised to make arrange­ments to re­lo­cate them. For those fam­i­lies who were re­luc­tant to re­lo­cate be­cause they de­pend­ed on fish­ing for their liveli­hoods, Ra­mad­hars­ingh said they could find apart­ments close to their homes which the min­istry would rent as a means of tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion. The min­is­ter al­so ap­pealed to the cor­po­rate sec­tor to as­sist dis­tressed fam­i­lies of Ica­cos, some of whom have ben­e­fit­ed from house grants and food cards.