Viburn Herbert, who lost her home to a fire of unknown origin on Thursday at Bare Root, East Coast Demerara, says her children are in the care of the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA).
According to Herbert, after the fire, she, her husband and their five children went with officials to the police station for questioning. Afterward, her husband was kept in custody, while the children, who are between the ages of 5 and 18, were taken into the care of the Child Protection (CC&PA) after she spent the night at friend’s house in the community.
“Well, they took them away because I have nowhere for them to live. I rather they have them rather than have punish with me. I lost everything,” said the woman, who is now staying with a friend.
Herbert told Stabroek News that on Thursday afternoon while at work on the GuSuCo estate at Enmore, a co-worker notified her that she should go home “right away” for an emergency. “It was after the co-worker give me the message, I start prepare myself to leave work and a girl call me from an unknown number. She told me that my house was burned to ground and that my two children were trapped inside,” Herbert said.
After receiving the disturbing news, Herbert said that she along with a superior travelled to her home, where she was relieved to meet her five children standing under a shed, sheltering from the rain.
“Apart from losing everything I thank God that my children were not harmed in any way. What hurts me is that it took me a lot of years to build my house piece by piece because I never wanted to deal with the bank,” Herbert lamented.
She said that when she looked at what was once her home, there were just the charred remains of wood and smoke emanating from the debris on the ground. She, however, added that villagers have started donated clothing and other essentials to her.
An eyewitness on Thursday, who provided his name as Andrew Farley, said that about 2:05pm, he and other persons who were at the head of the street saw black smoke rising in the air and went to investigate. He added that because the house was made of wood, within 15 minutes the entire structure was burned to the ground. Farley added that the fire service arrived about 10 minutes after the blaze erupted but was unable to do anything to save the house.
