By Subhana Shiwmangal
In the aftermath of the horrific dormitory fire that claimed the lives of 19 students in Mahdia on Sunday, Stabroek News spoke to a few relatives.
Lucia Charles, a cousin of Natalie Bellarmine, 16, Arriana Edwards, 13, and her sister Delecia Edwards, 15, said that on Sunday around 11:30 pm, her parents got a call from their cousin, Gwenette, who is the guardian of the two sisters and at the time was in Micobie informing them that she had received a call relating to one of the girls, Delecia.
Charles related that she got a call saying Delecia was found and she was pulled from the fire but Arriana could not be located. She recalled that when they heard that, it raised their hopes that the fire fighters would find Arriana, however, when the sisters’ brother arrived on the scene, he saw that the entire dorm was engulfed in flames and there was nothing else they could do to rescue anyone else from the building.
The brother explained that when he checked among those rescued, he didn’t find Arriana and later when the family received the second call from the school, they found out both of the girls had perished. She also found out later that Natalie was lost in the fire as well. “It is very heart breaking to know that they had to go that way,” she stated, while noting that the bodies were unrecognizable so DNA testing will have to be used to identify the remains.
Rihanna Jeffrey, the sister of Bibi Rita Jeffrey, cousin of Sabrina John, and Loreen Evans, and aunt of Belnisa Evans, all from Karisparu village, said that around 11:30 pm on Sunday, her sister called her to find out how she was managing with her examinations and also to give her a list of few items she needed for school, so she asked her to call her in the morning before she went to school.
Rihanna said that her sister’s last words were that she was going for dinner and she wished me good night sweet dreams and said “I love you” and she responded, “Same to you and I love you more.”
She added that she went to bed at the usual time because she was studying for her exams and put her phone on silent mode. However, that Sunday night she had a bad dreams relating to her sister, so she woke up and began to study and decided to check her phone. Rihanna explained to that she was greeted with missed calls and messages from Messenger and WhatsApp stating that, “the Mahdia female dorm is on fire.”
She said that at the time she didn’t know who to call because she didn’t have credit, but saw that a teacher was on WhatsApp and immediately contacted her. The teacher provided the number of the headmistress of Karisparu primary school for me to contact because the teacher had informed me that she’s worried about my sister. After I had finally gotten credit I contacted the headmistress.”
When Rihanna contacted the headteacher, she was told that they could not account for her sister and then a few moments later the same headmistress messaged her informing that, “My sister is among the four students of Karisparu that perished in fire.”
This, Rihanna said, is when she lost all hope that her sister was alive. Following that message, she received another call from one of the students at the dorm that confirmed that her sister had indeed died. “I just can’t imagine the pain, agony, horror, trauma, and panic attack them children went through crying out for help, it hurts me to the core. I am not hurt at the passing of my sister or the students because death is something that we all have to go through, but the way the death consumed them, in a blazing fire, is very painful. I can only imagine burning your hand on a baking pan and how painful it does be. What about the fire all over your body and no one to help you, where to run from it?”
Meanwhile, another person, who wished to remain anonymous, added that the fire happened so fast that she can’t say how the fire started. All she know she explained, is that her phone rang Sunday night and her mom was saying, “The dorms on fire. She recalled that she got up and tried to contact the students, just to hear that some students didn’t make it and her 5-year-old cousin, Adonijah Jerome, had died in the fire. She noted that this is a hard time for her especially since it all happened so suddenly.
