A Better Hope, East Coast Demerara (ECD) family has been left traumatised after they were terrorised by a group of bandits late Saturday night.
The incident occurred some time after 23:30h.
Guyana Times understands that the family had a small birthday party at their Lot 55 Zohora Street, Better Hope residence, and were cleaning up afterwards when three masked men – including one armed with a gun and another with a cutlass – scaled their fence and ran up into the house, where they beat and terrorised the occupants before making off with a quantity of cosmetic jewellery.
Speaking with this publication, Christine Ramnarain related that it was her 38th birthday and she hosted a small social for a few relatives and close friends. The woman said that her daughter and a few relatives were on the veranda sitting while she and her aunt were in the house.
“I decided to lie on the chair and rest when these three men just run through the door. They come straight to me and start beating me in the head. Then, the one with the gun went in one of the (two) rooms and the other who didn’t had any weapon go in the other room and they ransack it,” she recalled, noting that the one with the cutlass remained with her.
The woman added that shortly after, the gunman returned saying that there was nothing valuable in the room and continued hitting her.
“He put the gun to my head – you could see his hand trembling – and he said “how you ain’t get money and your husband working…” but like he was frighten, so the one with the cutlass push him away. He start lash me, saying ‘don’t make a sound’,” the traumatised woman recounted to this newspaper.
According to Ramnarain, all this was happening while her cousins and daughter on the veranda were unaware of what was transpiring inside. Her husband was asleep in the downstairs apartment, along with her four other children. She continued that after about 30 strokes to her head, she could not take the pain anymore and started to scream. This alerted the others.
“The pain get overbearing, so I decided to scream to let them children know to lock up and hide. Now after my cousins them hear, they get up from the veranda to come see what happened, but the cutlass bandit run out to them and tell them don’t say a word,” the woman related.
The gunman then joined his accomplice out on the veranda while the unarmed bandit remained with her. She added that shortly after the two armed men left and scaled the fence, leaving the third accomplice behind in the house. However, as he made his way down the stairs, Ramnarain’s husband was coming upstairs to check on his wife, but after seeing the bandit, he ran back inside the downstairs apartment and secured himself with the children inside. The bandit then made good his escape.

The ordeal lasted for less than 10 minutes, but left not only the family members living there traumatised but their visitors as well. Ramnarain said they could not sleep the entire night and her younger children were up all night crying.
Meanwhile, her eldest daughter related to Guyana Times that when the bandits confronted them on the veranda, they demanded all their valuables. However, most of the guests were wearing cosmetic jewellery that appeared to be gold and so they handed them over to the men. The cutlass-wielding bandit then struck two bottles that were on a table, shattering them and in the process, ended up broadsiding one of the guests on her hand and head.
This publication was told that when the men scaled the fence and ran up the stairs, they were seen by a neighbour, who contacted the Police. However, the ranks and the Community Policing Group (CPG) members in the area arrived about 10 minutes after the bandits left.