A mother and her two young sons died early yesterday morning in a fire that razed her recently acquired two-bedroom board house in a section of the rustic community of Little London known as Shanty Town, Top Hill.
According to the police, at about 2:15 am neighbours noticed that the house occupied by 24-year-old vendor Shaliah Graham and her two sons, Eldon Williams, 5, and Shamar Murdock, 7 was on fire.
The residents tried to put out the blaze but it spread quickly and engulfed the building.
According to Assistant Superintendent Wayne Wright of the Savanna-la-Mar Fire Department the cause of the fire is not yet determined. He disclosed that the building was not insured and estimated loss is valued at $2 million.
Nine members of the Savanna-la-Mar Fire Department used one unit to conduct cooling down operations.
Yesterday, Graham's distraught mother, Princess Thompson — who lives on a premises beside her daughter — recounted that she was awakened by screams.
Speaking between sobs, and being constantly supported by friends and family members, Thompson said that as she approached the house, she realised that the fire was confined to her daughter's bedroom to the front of the building.
"Me lay down and me hear me niece shout out say fire! fire! fire! and me rush out and me say Shirley house a burn down and her pickney them. When me look me see fire at the front of the house," the teary-eyed Thompson explained.
In a desperate bid to save her daughter and two grandsons, she darted to the rear of the building but found that the door was locked.
She eventually gained entry inside the burning building after a male resident threw a large stone into the door, forcing it open. Thompson said that she headed for the bed in search of her grandchildren but after she pulled the sheet she realised that they were not on the bed.
"But that time they [were already] burnt up in the fire around the front room. Them burn up already," she lamented.
Reflecting on the close relationship she enjoyed with her daughter and grandchildren Thompson said: "Shaliah nice to me. I could count on her. My grandchildren, they don't leave me alone. Early morning time and night time them come and look for me. Sometime during the mornings they would come before me open the door and say good morning grandmother and play with mi next two kids. My grandchildren them love me and me love them."
She said that on Saturday her grandson had a patty which he shared with her.
"I hugged him and he broke the patty and gave it to me. Lord have mercy," she cried out. "Me grandpickney them nice. Them born in me hand."
While Johnson spoke, several residents were seen staring blankly at burnt remains of the building next door.
