A man and his wife, who live in a house located right in the middle of the Lusignan massacre, believe that they have every reason to give thanks to their creator.
While the gunmen shouted at the Thomas family to open their doors and used many expletives in the protest, the Loutans were lying still in their beds hoping and praying that they would be spared. Three members of the Thomas family including two children were shot dead and several injured.
Par Loutan said she was sleeping when she heard the gunshots ring out but at first she felt that the sounds were coming from the nearby canefields, where she said gunshots are sometimes heard.
“But I realize it was close and me just start praying, I was trembling and it is like I did `stupidy’ (disoriented) and felt that I was in some other world,” she told this newspaper yesterday.
The woman said she heard the gunmen shouting, “open the door! open the door!’ and the next thing she heard were gunshots and she decided to stay in her bed.
“It seem as though they did move up (the road) cause we heard shots in the other direction but we continue staying still and when we hear like it die down I run over to baby [Gomattie Thomas] and I see she husband lying over the landing bleeding and I holler fuh she,” she said.
She continued, “Like when they done shoot they start shouting, ‘leh we go, no more ain’t deh, we don dem.”
The woman said she entered the house and saw the children lying still on the bed but at that time had no idea they were dead, and then she saw Gomattie coming out crying and her son Howard asked for her to call the police.
“He come out holding he hand and the lil boy [injured Roberto Thomas] come out calling fuh mommy and I try waking up the rest but is then I realize that they dead,” the woman recounted.
She said she did not see any of the men when she ran over to the neighbour’s house and by that time she suspects the men may have left. Loutan said she called out and other neighbours started coming out and the children were rushed to the hospital. The woman said she is very close to the Thomas family and so their grief is also her’s.
The woman and her husband said no one in the community could sleep at nights as the events of Saturday morning are still fresh in their minds.
“That was a night I will never forget and so it is hard for us to sleep because we don’t know what happens next. People are saying we should move out, but we build here and we are comfortable, so moving will be really hard for us,” the woman said.
