The fire that claimed the home of Yasin Hamid, of Felicity, East Coast Demerara is suspected to be a result of a kerosene stove left alight by his wife earlier during the day.
Hamid resided in the house with his father, his pregnant wife and their six children.
Hamid, during a telephone interview, told Stabroek News that his wife, Wendy Rodrigues, had prepared lunch on the stove and was unsure if she turned it off afterward. “Me wife cook lunch and she done about 10 am when she left the house fuh go over de river (West Coast Demerara) but she can’t remember if she out am or just turn am down and we know nah current because we light get cut off,” he said.
Hamid added that when he returned home from work around 12 pm, the curry his wife had cooked was on the stove and it was warm, indicating that the stove may have been turned down low.
He said that he is less worried about the cause of the fire and more concerned with rebuilding his home.
He added that he was financially handicapped since all the money he had saved was burnt with the house. He pleaded for the general public and organisations to render some form of assistance, since he could not afford a new start on his own presently.
“Right now me nah wuk because me busy trying to get things done and me ah accept help from anybody because all the money me had save burn up in the house, so rite now me nah afford fuh do nothing,” he related last evening.
He added that he had blocked up the bottom flat of his mother’s house with old zinc sheets and plywood and he is residing there with his family. He, however, said that they have to sleep on the floor and that is a concern since his wife is expected to give birth soon.
“We ah tek all the help awe can get because right now we nah got no mattress fuh sleep pon, we just spread some old cloth pon de ground and awe a sleep there but it hard fuh me wife because she pregnant,” he explained.
Persons from the Guyana Relief Council visited the family yesterday and offered assistance in the form of groceries and clothing and it was accepted by them.
The fire that gutted Hamid’s three bedroom home at Lot 22 Felicity, Railway Embankment sometime around 12:30 pm on Monday, left the members of the family with just the clothes on their back.
