Four days after the horrific deaths of her two young sons 37-year-old Sonia George is still in a state of shock and while she agrees that her living conditions were not ideal to raise her five children, she questions how her young sons could die under the care of an agency that was supposed to protect them.
With pain etched on her face, the mother of 6-year-old Antonio George, and 3-year-old Joshua George, who died tragically early Friday morning when fire ripped through the Drop-In Centre on Hadfield Street, said she has many questions and no answers.
“They are saying that under my care my children were neglected. But they were alive. You take them out of my care. You said you would protect them and now you can only produce three of my children?” George asked rhetorically during an interview with Stabroek News last evening.
Five children—aged 11, 8, 6, 3 and 16 months old—were removed from their parents Chapel Street, Lodge home by Child Care and Protection Agency (CCPA) officers on Wednesday evening and by Friday morning two were dead.
“I can’t cry any more. Is like I just can’t cry; this thing is too much for me…,” the woman said as she sat next to her reputed husband 66-year-old Leon George. They incidentally share the same last name, but are not married.
They both agreed that the apartment they shared with the children was in a condemned building and was not ideal for raising the children but they quickly pointed out that they were alive, walking and talking up to last Wednesday evening and today two are dead.
“It was just hours, in just hours two of my children are dead,” the woman lamented.
If Sonia could turn back the hands of time, she would erase what transpired from last Wednesday evening to Friday morning but this cannot be done. Her only wish is now have a home, rented or owned, to “have my family back together so I can look after my children.”
She said her weekend was made even more painful by CCPA officials who refused her permission to spend time with her remaining children. It was not until yesterday that she was given access to them and then just for a few hours. She said they were not allowed to ask their children any questions. The woman said what was even worse was that her baby was still being breast fed and the pain in her breasts remind her constantly even if her heart and mind forget momentarily.
“My daughter, who is eight, tell me ‘mommy I pick up me sister and I run out when the fire start and I de want run back for my brothers’ and I wondering now how the lady from the centre say she take the baby out,” the mother said. Sharon Jones, one of the two caregivers who were at the centre at the time of the fire told the media last Friday that she had taken the baby out of the building.
Apart from the unsuitable living conditions, sources at the CCPA had also informed that the mother is a victim of domestic violence. Asked about this, Leon George denied it saying that they would “quarrel hard.”
“People would hear us quarrelling and they want to mind our business and get in…,” he said. When asked directly if he hits his wife, he said, “not really.”
Asked if her husband beats her Sonia shook her head in the negative.
Last Wednesday
Recounting the circumstances under which her children were removed, Sonia recalled that during the early evening of last Wednesday, two individuals, a man and a woman, visited her home and identified themselves as child care officers.
“The man tell me that he surprise I am home because the report they get is that I does be on the road picking fare. I don’t pick fare, my baby does still nurse, she does be with me all the time,” the woman declared.
The officer also indicated that it was reported that her eldest son was usually on the streets begging. She informed that this was not the case but that the child had left earlier to get his hair cut and had not returned and she had looked for him. She informed the officers of his usual hanging spot and they left, returning with him shortly after. She was then told that she and her son would have to accompany them to the agency’s office.
The four other children were left in a neighbour’s care until they father returned from work. “When we reach deh I tell them how I feel and what does happen. And they then start talking to he [her son] asking her why he does go on the streets, if he don’t feel loved,” she said.
The officers then had a discussion among themselves in the absence of Sonia and her and subsequently informed her that they were taking the children into their care.
“Right away I get sick and I had to go the bathroom and vomit and then later I faint and they call a ambulance to take me to the hospital,” Sonia recalled.
She said by the time the ambulance arrived she had regained consciousness and she overheard a CCPA official—whom she named—saying, ‘Don’t worry with that she only playing tricks.’ However, when her vitals were checked by ambulance attendants they strongly advised that she accompany them to the hospital because her “pressure was very high.” But the woman said she refused and signed a document to this effect.
In the meantime, some CCPA officers had returned to Chapel Street, by which time the children’s father was home and they informed him that they were taking them to see their mother. “They never tell me is taking they taking the children,” he said.
Sonia related that she left the CCPA s office without seeing her children and almost collapsed on the street. Two officers who followed her in a car, offered to take her home but she refused.
“They tell me that if anything happen to me how child care guh look bad and they want take me home. When I tell them no, they say they will call the police and I tell them to do it because I ain’t commit any crime I cooperate with them…,” the woman said.
Eventually, she got into the car and allowed them to take her to a friend’s house. The following day, the woman said, she called one of the officers and asked about the way forward.
“She tell me to get a job and a good home and I will get back my children but she said to go to the agency on Friday,” Sonia said.
Even though she was missed her children tremendously, she said, she did not want to fight the system and decided to wait for the following day. That was the day when tragedy struck.
Shocking news
The parents recalled that it was a public-spirited citizen who woke them up early Friday morning.
“The woman come on a scooter and ask if we ain’t get five children at the Drop-In Centre and I tell she yes and she tell us come out, but I sent a friend because my wife pressure was already high,” the father said.
On receiving the news, the friend started to holler and fainted and the man said he then decided to accompany the woman on the scooter to the centre, where he was greeted with the burnt out structure and an unofficial report that his children had died.
He said he was approached by some CCPA officers who wanted to take him to the Sophia Care Centre to see the other children, but he asked to be taken back to his home to check on his wife first.
“When I get there, she lie down on the road and we take her to the hospital in the same bus, but they didn’t treat her right away and by the time I come out back they [the officers in the bus] already left,” he said.
Later Friday morning the parents visited the CCPA office where they sat for hours before seeing someone in authority. He said his wife became ill again and some officers took them to a pharmacy for treatment and they returned to the agency.
“After we sitting there I turn and I tell one a them if I don’t see somebody in another few minutes then I would go to a judge, the media and the President. And is then they tell me that they having a big meeting so we wait lil more,” Leon said.
It was about half an hour later that they were approached by Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence and CCPA Director Ann Greene, both of whom expressed condolences.
“Now they did not even tell we officially that we children dead and who really dead. And I did tell my wife that them children in the hospital. So when they tell we condolences is then she really know is dead they dead.
Then they tell we they going to a press conference and if we want come. I tell them I not ready to talk to the media,” the man said.
They waited until Greene returned from the press conference, at which time she informed them that post-mortem examinations had been done on their children’s bodies.
“I was done upset because no family went to see the post mortem.
And then she tell us that they standing the funeral expense and that the funeral will be on Sunday.
I tell her no way, we not ready yet for the funeral,” the father said, obviously agitated.
He said he was also upset that some of the CCPA officers insinuated that only one of the children was his. His wife also said this was thrown out to her last Wednesday and one of the officers even suggested going to the paternal grandmother to verify this.
“Imagine I saying is my children. She saying is my children and they want go to me mother to ask,” the man remarked incredulously.
The parents indicated that while the four younger children were born out of their union, the eldest was eight months old when they started a relationship.
Sonia said she left the agency on Friday without seeing her children. “I called and I begged them to see my children and they say I have to wait until Monday because they don’t work on weekends.
Now the children are there, somebody have to be with them why I could not just go and see them?” she lamented.
Yesterday it was a relief to see her children, but the allotted time flew by and now she is longing to see them again.
“I can’t sleep in that place any more. I can’t live without my children. All I want is my children,” the grieving mother said, adding that she was told by CCPA officials that counselling would be offered to them, but not when.
She said it was only two years ago that she started living in the condemned house with Leon after a fire destroyed the house she had lived in with her children in Alberttown. Prior to that the couple had a visiting relationship.
Even as they prepare to bury the only sons of their union, their only wish is that they can be reunited soon with their remaining children.
“We looking for an opportunity to bring out family back together. We don’t want them to suffer anymore. We can live and be free and be safe. All we want is a home. I am working…,” Leon said as Sonia nodded in agreement.
Stabroek News caught up with the couple at Red Thread’s office and head of the non-governmental organization Karen de Souza said her agency will continue to liaise with them to ensure they receive the assistance needed.
