An early morning fire which gutted two buildings at the corner of George and Durban Streets has left more than 20 Venezuelan migrants homeless.
One of the buildings was rented by a group of Venezuelans.
The Fire Service was summoned to the scene at around 1:45 this morning after persons raised an alarm as flames were spotted in a section of the building.
In addition to the tenants, the building also housed a vulcanizing shop on the ground floor.
The owner of the vulcanizing shop who also rents an apartment in the building, Kevin Phillips said moments before the fire was spotted, two men were seen riding off on a motorcycle from the area. He suspects arson.
“I was sleeping and I heard my dogs kept barking all the time. I decided to get up and see what was going on. I looked through a small vent and I saw two persons riding away from the side of the yard. The next thing I heard was the neighbour shouting for fire fire”, Phillips said.
The businessman explained that he attempted to douse the fire himself but failed as he waited on the arrival of the Fire Service.
“We tried to contain the fire but we couldn’t contain it but we try to save something which we didn’t get to do really everything is just burnt. We sell electrical bikes and all of them were destroyed. We also have people who had their bikes in the shop and those too were destroyed.”
The Venezuelan tenants who occupied the top floors of the building don’t know how they will pick themselves up from the tragedy. One of them said they all lost everything in the blaze.
The Fire Service has indicated that it will be carrying out a full probe into the fire. Divisional Officer in the Fire Service, Haimchandra Persaud said all theories about the cause of the fire will be probed.
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