Fire victim defends her family amidst social media comments

An aunt of the two children who died in a fire around noon on Wednesday is urging the public to get the facts and show empathy to her family.

The woman noted that people had been saying on social media that the children were at home alone at the time of the blaze but she said this was not the case.

Police have confirmed that two children died in the fire, and iWitness News was reliably informed that they are Deron Junior Peters, 1 and Deiara Peters, 3.

Their parents are Deron Peters, 32 and Shemille Peters, 28.

The aunt, who also lived at the house, spoke to iWitness News after police had processed the scene in Georgetown.

She asked not to be identified by name but said that nine children lived in the house, where she lived with her two children, her brothers, her grandfather, her uncle and her aunt.

“I was not at home,” the woman told iWitness News, adding that she had gone job hunting in Kingstown.

The woman told iWitness News that her brother, who was also in the city, telephoned asking if she was at home and then told her that he had heard that the house was on fire and one of the children was inside.

She said one of her neighbours then called saying that she had her (the adult female occupant’s) daughter but not her son.

“When I came up now, I found out it was my niece and nephew,” she told iWitness News, adding that she had interacted with her niece and nephew that morning before leaving for the capital.

“My niece told me, ‘Tantie, go out my room.’ Because she always calls my room her room. I hugged her, I kissed my nephew and told her, ‘I am going to town. I will bring back biscuits for you all. I hugged my son and my daughter.

“When I came home now, I found out they died. I started to cry because they were close to me. I got them like my own kids,” said the woman who was seen earlier being consoled as tears streamed down her face.

“I do not like how people running us down and saying nobody was in the house. Adults were in the house but the fire was too much for them to go.”

She said her grandfather, who was admitted to hospital after the fire, her aunt who is “cripple” and her sister-in-law who is asthmatic were at home at the time.

“And they tried their best,” the woman told iWitness News.

She said her grandfather told her that he was “behind the back and he started to smell the smoke but when he came round, my sister-in-law was trying to get the kids out of the house but the smoke was too much for her and the blazing of the fire was too much.

“So, they did not get to get those two,” she said, referring to the infants who died.

“It was nobody’s fault and I do not like how everybody on social media pulling down my family,” she said.

“This is not the time for everybody pulling us down… We lost somebody close to us and we don’t like how you guys pulling us down,” she further stated.

“You guys can say your condolences or ‘sorry for your loss’.  We do not need this right now because my grandfather is over there right now reading the comments and he is taking it on,” she said, referring to the hospital in Georgetown, to which he was admitted.

The woman confirmed that the house was rewired last Christmas.

“The guy who came and rewired it said everything is good. I don’t know if it was inspected because he changed the breaker,” she told iWitness News.

Among the people who responded to the scene were personnel from the Electrical Inspectorate who inspected the building after police had processed the scene.

iWitness News was reliably informed that the children’s bodies were found under a burnt-out bed in a bedroom closest to the patio.

The woman told iWitness News that the house had three bedrooms and the children slept on a bed in their father’s room.

“It is very hard on me because I raise them like my own,” she said of the death of the children.

“The little boy used to call me mommy and he is my nephew,” she said, adding that the girl who died used to tease her, telling her to go out of her room.

“She was like just under me but when her daddy comes, she’s gone,” the woman told iWitness News.

iWitness News understands that the children who died and two of their siblings, one of whom was not their father’s biological child, lived with him at the house.

Their mother lived elsewhere in St. Vincent but came to the scene after the fire.

The adult occupant of the house told iWitness News that they were not able to save anything in the house and that she did not know at the time of the interview around 6 p.m. where they were going to be housed.

She, however, said she has a brother who works with the National Emergency Management Organisation, the director of which also visited the scene on Wednesday.