Ransacked Angoy’s Avenue home goes up in flames

Both the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) have launch investigations after it was discovered that a two-storey house at Angoy’s Avenue in New Amsterdam, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) had been ransacked before it went up in flames.

The fire occurred at Lot 740 Angoy’s Avenue at around 03:30hrs, while the owner, Donna Juno, was offshore working and her daughter was staying with a relative.

Juno’s cousin, 43-year-old Annie Maurice, said the daughter was awakened by a telephone call from a friend informing her that the house was on fire.

Maurice said they immediately left for Angoy’s Avenue, where firefighters, police ranks and Guyana Power and Light (GPL) personnel were already on the scene.

“So, she wakes me up and tells me that their house is on fire. Her friend calls Donna’s daughter and tells her that their house is on fire, let us come down. And when we rush down, the fire service, the police, GPL, they were all here. We went upstairs and they take statements and it’s kind of, you know, it’s hurtful to know, you know, you got to jump out your bed to come to this disaster here, you know,” she expressed.

By the time Maurice arrived, firefighters had already brought the blaze under control.

However, what relatives encountered inside the upper flat raised questions about what may have happened before the fire. Maurice said she accompanied fire personnel upstairs and found all three bedrooms ransacked. She had been at the property only the previous day to clean and said the condition in which she found the rooms was vastly different.

According to Maurice, cupboards had also been disturbed, while alcohol and other items, including food from the refrigerator, appeared to be missing.

“When I went upstairs, it was ransacked, you know. Her bedroom, ransacked. The second room, ransacked. The other room, it ransacked. Our kitchen cupboards, she had some alcohols that was missing. Things from our fridge, some candies and it was very devastating because, you know, I only went here the day before to clean and to come back to know to those kind of thing, you know, so that is it.”

Relatives say CCTV footage from the property may provide investigators with another piece of the puzzle. The footage reportedly shows a man approaching the building and climbing from the lower patio onto the upper patio.

Investigators will now have to determine how the fire started and whether the apparent intrusion and ransacking of the upper flat are connected to the blaze.