A young family of five is now homeless after their house was last evening destroyed by fire.
Those homeless are 25-year-old Christina Nandlall , her 24-year-old husband and their three children, aged 3, 5, and 8.
The fire erupted at the Charles Place, New Amsterdam, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) property at around 20:00hrs.
The husband had gone to a nearby shop while the woman and her children were on the roadside waiting on him.
However, the woman reportedly instructed her five-year-old to go into the house after she was misbehaving.
Sometime later, the child returned outside where she continued to wait with the family.
However, the woman said she began to notice smoke coming from the house and upon checking, she noticed that everything inside was on fire.
“A lighter was over the bed on the shelf and she take it down and light a pillow. When she light the pillow, she come outside and deh with me all the time, and me didn’t know,” the woman related.
When she noticed the fire, the woman tried to save her house with the use of buckets of water but this proved futile. By the time the Guyana Fire Service arrived, it was too late to salvage anything.
The woman is a stay-at-home mother while her husband works as a cart operator at the New Amsterdam market.
From all indications, the child reportedly set the house on fire with a lighter. This was relayed by Divisional Fire Officer Fitzroy Sutten who said investigations are still ongoing.
