In tonight's news so far, we've told you about the escape and the riot at the Belize Central Prison, and the 3 murders in San Pedro and Belize City. But, there were 2 other unfortunate incidents that happened during the holiday weekend.
Both of them were devastating house fires, and but we report first on the weekend blaze that destroyed a 2-story apartment complex on Partridge Street in Belize City. Sometime before midnight on Friday, a 4-year-old child, who was left unattended by his mother, was reportedly playing with a lighter. That play turned into catastrophe when he accidentally set a fire and lit his family's room on fire. Because it was a wooden structure, it spread to the other 7 rooms and burnt it completely down.
7News went looking for answers today, and Daniel Ortiz has that story:
The smoldering columns and wooden beams of this building are all that currently remain. But, before this weekend's fire gutted it, the building was an 8-room apartment complex housing 8 different families.
And tonight, 20 people who make up those 8 families remain completely displaced.
Kenneth Mortis - Station Supervisor, National Fire Service
"We learnt that the 8-room apartment structure that housed 8 families - 20 persons in total was displace by that fire, age ranged from 2-25 years of age."
We are told that the building was a low-incoming housing opportunity that Wilfred Elrington, the retiring UDP Area Rep for Pickstock, provided as a pro-poor initiative for several of his needy constituents.
Gareth Gill - Fire Victim
"The house was owned by all of us. The land is for government."
Reporter
"It's not necessarily an apartment where you have to pay money."
Gareth Gill - Fire Victim
"It was given to us through the minister Wilfred Sedi Elrington. He told us that he wanted us to take care of it. This man came here and he decided to do something for us which everyone was grateful of. Now because of negligent the whole 7 families are out of door."
The negligence Gill is referring to is a finding by the fire experts on its cause. The investigators say that this devastating blaze was caused by a child who was playing with fire.
Kenneth Mortis
"We can conclude that that particular fire started from the number one apartment of that complex and thereby spread and consume the balance of the building. We can also conclude that the fire started as a result of the parents of the children left them unattended whereby the 4 year-old for that family was playing with a lighter and therefore caused fire to the structure that eventually caused the balance of the building to being destroyed and leave the balance of the family members displaced."
Gareth Gill
"From that young lady live here I made a complaint to the Family Violence Unit that every time she has a problem leaving her children locking up her children and she goes. When she comes back it is all after 3,4,5,6 in the morning. The young lady who lives across her one night I was upstairs and heard the banging on the door, so I decided to come out and see. When I came out the children were bawling, hollering for her, because she picks up herself and leave them there. I use to mind her children, because of that same behavior. She usually leave her children and go and one time I use to take care of her children and take them with me wherever I go. Sometimes people would ask me if those were my children, because I love the babies them. The babies are not to be blamed, it's her."
And so, there is now a lot of misery to go around for these 20 people, and now Gill is making a public call to the authorities to prosecute the mother of the child who lit the complex on fire.
Gareth Gill
"Before the house light I was upstairs having a conversation with my sister and I came down and saw the child in the bathroom with a black lighter because the light was on. I ask where is your mother and the child said that their mom lock us up and gone. She is saying that she went to shop to buy, and literally lock the door with a padlock. That doesn't make sense. If you say that you are going to the shop to buy, you could have left open the door so that the children could have been playing outside. Every time I make report about this, they came here and found the children locked up and they took the children one night and what happened - they give the children back to her."
Morrison tells us that his firefighting team encountered several problems on the scene of this fire. First, the electrical wiring caught fire in the blaze, and that created a hazard for the firefighters. Then, sometime during the effort to put the blaze out, their trucks ran out of water. The distressed fire victims reportedly become very aggressive toward firemen, and they had to de-escalate tensions in order to do their jobs.
