Couva family homeless as house firebombed on Christmas Eve

A COUVA woman says her family is "traumatised" as their house was firebombed for the second time on Thursday – exactly a year after the first time. The family is now homeless and the mother believes the attack came from distant family members over a land dispute.

Runa Ali, 40, told Newsday she, her daughter Alexandra Kissoon and her son Kyle Kissoon have been receiving threats that their home would be destroyed for the past seven years. They live in McBean Village, Couva.

Ali is the mother of the late Brandon Kissoon, a Couva fisherman who was among a group thrown overboard by pirates in the Gulf of Paria last year.

Their home was firebombed just before Christmas last year while Ali and her daughter were inside. That time, the damage was not bad, as she was able to put out the fire, and fire officials arrived in time.

But this time around, Ali has lost everything. The shell of the house remains, but everything inside has been completely destroyed.

Speaking with Newsday on Thursday morning, she said, "Well, we aren't going to have a merry Christmas."

"For a while now, we were staying by my mother (in California) but we decided to come back home for the Christmas and fix up the place.

"We came here on Wednesday, fixed it up, we buy groceries, market, we put everything in the fridge and left. We said we'd come home today (Thursday) because we were getting people to transport the stuff today.

"But this morning, I got a call around 1.30 that my house was on fire."

By the time she arrived, she said, "Everything was gone."

When Newsday visited, fire officials, police and officials from the TT Electricity Commission (T&TEC) were there.

Anyone wishing to contact Ali can call 318-9613.

More as this becomes available.