Mon Repos residents were scared out of their wits on Thursday night when gunmen passed through Agriculture Road firing shots, hitting at least one house.
No one was hurt in the incident.
At around 7.30 pm reports say gunmen started firing shots sending those in earshot diving to the ground for cover.
According to the residents, the episode lasted for about five minutes and the men left by making their way through the thickly foliaged area west of Agriculture Road.
A farmer who lives some metres south of the NARI complex told this newspaper that the police arrived promptly but the gunmen had fled by then. He said that police arrived within 15 minutes of being summoned.
The elderly man, who asked for his name to be withheld, showed this reporter a bullet graze to the northern side of his house from the shooting incident. He said that upon hearing the gunshots he and his son hit the floor.
He said that from the gunshot noises that he heard, he deduced that it couldn’t have been just one or two men. “It was nuff of them, we had to turn off the lights,” the man told this newspaper.
“I know it was plenty of them because nuff gun was going off,” the man said. He added that he heard the men going over to the neighbour’s house while firing shots. The man said too that he believes the men cut the telephone lines from the lamppost in a bid to stymie communication efforts.
When this newspaper visited, the occupant of the neighbouring house was not there, nor was there any visible sign of an attack there.
Another resident told Stabroek News that the men were attempting to enter an abandoned house in the area and were seen by neighbours trying to break a window. According to her, the men struggled with the grill work and fired a few shots in the air, which she felt may have been to keep residents in their homes.
The woman said a group of concerned residents who are firearm holders also fired some shots and this made the men hurry back into the backlands.
“People ran out of their homes and onto the street because we were really afraid because the night was still and the shots could be heard clearly,” the woman told Stabroek News.
A woman, who lives about five houses away from where the shooting occurred, told this newspaper that her children were home alone and were frightened. Michelle Williams who works as a security guard said that by the time she got home from work at midnight the commotion had died down, and her children and residents related to her what had taken place earlier.
