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Monday, March 3, 2025

Sombre Easter for Penal family of 7 as fire guts house

by

Sascha Wilson
340 days ago
20240328
Yrawatee Mohammed, left, and her daughter Zaiyda reflect on their losses after a fire gutted their Julien Branch Trace, Penal home last Saturday. The family is now asking for assistance to rebuild their lives.

Yrawatee Mohammed, left, and her daughter Zaiyda reflect on their losses after a fire gutted their Julien Branch Trace, Penal home last Saturday. The family is now asking for assistance to rebuild their lives.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

While sev­er­al fam­i­lies are plan­ning ac­tiv­i­ties for the long East­er week­end, it will be a som­bre one for the Mo­hammed fam­i­ly from Pe­nal.

Last Sat­ur­day a fire gut­ted the fam­i­ly’s home at Julien Branch Trace, Rochard Road, leav­ing four adults, and three chil­dren home­less.

The fire al­so dam­aged an­oth­er house near­by be­long­ing to a rel­a­tive and de­stroyed his $75,000 Sportero L200 van. Zaiy­da Mo­hammed, 22, said she was alone at home with her two chil­dren, ages eight months and three years old. Her hus­band, par­ents and 16-year-old sis­ter had gone out.

Mo­hammed said she was wash­ing clothes down­stairs with her two chil­dren when she smelt smoke, but she thought a neigh­bour was burn­ing de­bris. Re­count­ing the or­deal dur­ing an in­ter­view on Tues­day, Mo­hammed said:

“I came out­side and when I watched I saw a lot of smoke. When I came by the van, I saw smoke start­ed to blaze up on the house. I just ran un­der the house, take up my two chil­dren and ran to my aun­ty home in front to call for help. Be­fore any­body could run to save any­thing the house done blaze up with fire al­ready.”

Lament­ing that the house was de­stroyed, Mo­hammed’s moth­er Yrawa­tee, 43, said every­thing they owned went up in flames. She said her son’s house, lo­cat­ed near­by, was dam­aged and his new­ly pur­chased van was de­stroyed. While re­lieved and hap­py that her daugh­ter and grand­chil­dren were un­harmed, Yrawa­tee said the fam­i­ly would need as­sis­tance to re­build their home.

“We stay­ing in my son’s house, the part that was not burnt. We need help. Any help we get we will ap­pre­ci­ate it be­cause we lost every­thing. Every­thing lost in the fire,” she said.

Fire of­fi­cers from the Siparia Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed to the blaze since the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion had no trucks. A T&TEC crew al­so came to the scene. The cause of the blaze is still to be de­ter­mined.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact 307-0061.

FireInstagramEaster


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