Gunmen on New Year’s morning attacked members of the Bethel Wesleyan Church on the Bachelor’s Adventure Public Road, East Coast Demerara robbing the pastor and a woman of jewellery valued at $145,000 along with an undisclosed sum of church funds.
The robbers, armed with rifles, ordered over 20 members to lie on the floor while threatening to shoot the Pastor, Clairmonte Boucher. Speaking to Stabroek News last evening Boucher said that they had their traditional Old Year’s Night church service on Monday evening which concluded at 1 am on Tuesday. He said it is customary that a social would follow the service every year and this year there was no difference. He told Stabroek News that they had just finished eating – around 30 of them and were sitting mainly inside the church and on the verandah when around 4:30 on Tuesday morning the bandits struck. The pastor said one of the bandits wore military fatigues, while another was decked out in a black dress and a wig. He said all three men brandished rifles. Boucher said when he first saw the men entering the church he thought they were policemen. “I thought there was a robbery nearby and the police were after the bandits,” the pastor said. He said once the gunmen got into the church the one dressed in military fatigues went up to him and asked for the church funds. “Pastor where is the money?” Boucher quoted the bandit as saying. By this time he said the rest of his congregation was placed to lie face down and he was soon ordered to adopt the same position. He said beside him was a sister of the church and she too was forced to lie face down. Boucher told Stabroek News that he showed the robbers to the offering which was on a table near the rostrum. He said the man in the black dress went to uplift the offering, but he did not find it and they then began threatening him.
“Like this man deh pon stupidness
