New Year’s Day baby perishes in Stewartville blaze

Jan 24, 2013 News

“Just so how me left she, me come meet she dead and lay down,” a tearful mom recalled

By Romila Boodram and Leonard Gildarie

It was a night of horror for a mother who returned home to see her house in flames and her 23-day-old baby trapped in the burning building at Lot 116 Second Street, Stewartville, West Coast Demerara (WCD).

The dead baby Alisha Boodram

The property was occupied by two families and also housed a furniture workshop.
Dead is Alisha Samantha Boodram who was born on New Year’s Day.
Reports are that around 20:30hrs, the mother of the infant, 18-year-old Samantha Boodram, left the baby under the supervision of a six-year-old child to go to the shop. Upon returning, she noticed that the entire house was engulfed in flames. The infant was trapped inside.
Last evening, when Kaieteur News arrived at the scene, the flames were already extinguished by fire fighters. There was a huge crowd of neighbours and other villagers around the property. Police were also conducting their investigation.
The first-time mother was standing traumatised at the back of the burnt-out building. “I left to go to the shop and before I could have reached back I hear somebody holler ‘fire, fire’. When me come, me see the entire place in fire. Me tell me husband to go save me baby but he seh when he reach at the back door the whole place was in flame.” She had only moved to the property last Friday.
Boodram said yesterday that it was the first time that she ever left her baby alone. “Me never left me baby alone. This was the first time and look what happen. Just so how me left she, me come meet she dead and lay down…”
The woman said she overheard someone in the crowd saying that they saw someone pelting something in the yard. “I don’t know who said it but I hear when the person said they see when somebody throw something in the yard.”
Kaieteur News was unable to speak with the baby’s father, who was busy with

Samantha Boodram (red top) being consoled by a relative

investigators at the time.
The six-year-old, under whose supervision the baby was left, was being interviewed by a female police rank.
The owner of the property, Kevin Smith, said that he left his home around 20:00hrs to go on the road. Upon returning he heard everyone shouting “fire, fire.”
He said, “By the time I reach here everything was in flames. I don’t know what really happen. I never had any problem with the neighbours before and today (yesterday) was just a normal day. I close up my workshop half day.”
The house was constructed some 15 years ago. Up to press time, investigators were still trying to ascertain the cause of the fire and to retrieve the remains of the baby.