A Number 19 Village, Corentyne household came under gunfire early yesterday morning, after a failed bid by a group of armed bandits to enter their home.
No one was injured in the attack on the home of Kajewattie ‘Nalo’ Bachan, of Warren, which runs along the Number 19 Highway, but several windows were destroyed by the shooting.
Bachan was in the house along with her husband and their two children. She was distraught yesterday as a result of the attack, which lasted five minutes.
She recounted that she and her husband were awakened by strange sounds around 2:30am.
The woman said she heard “a big noise” and they found between four and armed men trying to gain access to the building via the side windows. They later discovered that the would-be intruders ripped off all the wooden window bars in their bid to gain access to the house.
Bachan took her children and hid them in another room while her husband tried to frighten the bandits off. “Then we started to shout ‘thief, thief!’” she recalled, adding that the men then retreated. “After a sudden, they disappeared and then a bit after, they went on my bridge and started to fire shots at the front of my home and broke my windows and they gone,” she added.
The bandits left empty-handed. Police later arrived and recovered spent shells. No arrests were made up to press time.
No streetlights
Warren and other villages that run along the Number 19 Highway have been constantly attacked by robbers and burglars over the past years. The absence of streetlights and landline telephone services make the areas particularly vulnerable. Residents depend on the use of cell phones, while a few of them have antenna phones, which they say have become antiquated and do not work properly in some cases. As a result, residents have been clamouring for the street lighting to be addressed, especially since there have been numerous accidents along the road over the years.
At a crime and security meeting in May, Region 6 Chairman David Armogan and Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee were among officials that addressed the situation.
Armogan, explaining why the Number 19 roadway did not have street lights like other Corentyne roadways, said that there is no fund for street-lighting, which is now a feature of new roads constructed with IDB funding. He said that when the Number 19 roadway was re-built a few years ago, the contract did not include street-lighting. “So that matter is now engaging [Transport] Minister [Robeson] Benn and he is looking at it but I can’t promise you anything—and Minister Benn has not promised anything and as soon as we have word on that we will let you know,” he said.
Rohee, meanwhile, noted that while lights give people a sense of comfort, they do not stop crime. “It get plenty communities around this country with plenty lights, Georgetown got plenty lights, but criminals still operate. I am not saying that because the criminals are operating, do not put lights. I am saying put the lights but don’t believe the lights will be the salvation,” he said.
He also urged the residents to help themselves fight crime by organising themselves into Community Policing Groups (CPGs) and pledged the support of his ministry to those groups if and when they are formed.
The area has two CPG officers, but they told Stabroek News that the bandits are more equipped than them as they have only a pair of handcuffs and batons. They want guns.
