Women and children from the Zimbabwe and Sunlight Street communities in South St Andrew staged separate demonstrations on Tuesday to bring attention to their plight as victims in a war between gangs from both communities.

There is one common thread. Residents of both communities say they have come under attack from armed men.

The Denham Town police have confirmed that there is a feud between gangs from Zimbabwe – one of the largest communities in Arnett Gardens – and a gang known as Sunrise which is made up of men from Ramsay Road, Sunlight Street, Waltham Avenue and Whitfield Avenue.

Police say they are looking for a man believed to have links to the Sunrise gang, who is known only as “Murderer”, in connection with shootings in the Zimbabwe community on Sunday.

On Tuesday, the first demonstration by placard-bearing women and children from the Zimbabwe community was held at the corner of Lyndhurst Road and Beechwood Avenue.

The protesters claimed that they had been forced to seek refuge in the Charlie Smith Comprehensive High School after a band of marauding gunmen invaded their community on Saturday and murdered two men. The armed men, they said, also looted homes in the area and made off with appliances as well as other valuables.

According to the protesters, they are afraid to return to their homes.

“We have to sleep at Charlie Smith since Saturday,” one shirtless, barefooted boy shouted. “Them come and kick off we door and take away all we TV.”

“Dem take away about 200 TV and throw a girl through a window and bruck her back,” one woman alleged.

The police have confirmed the incident and say two men, 35-year-old Eustace “Tass” Donalds and 16-year-old Richard Dixon were shot and killed and another injured during the incident.

Police report that at about 10:00 am Sunday, a group of heavily-armed men and women invaded Zimbabwe and kicked off the door to Donald’s house and sprayed him with bullets, killing him on the spot. The gang then went to Dixon’s house and repeated the act, police say.

But the residents of Sunlight Street say they are the victims, and accuse men from Zimbabwe of starting the feud.

They held their counter-demonstration at the corner of Sunlight Street and Maxfield Avenue as dusk descended on Tuesday.

They claimed that the recent upsurge in violence started after persons began looting a construction site in Trench Town during the early hours of Hurricane Ivan’s passing.

“A Sunrise man dem get de contract fi secure de site and dem tell dem say don’t take de steel. De Zim man dem decide say dem want de steel and start fire pan Sunrise man dem,” one woman said. “Is two man who dem import from Grants Pen take over from dem and a cause de trouble.”

The demonstrators loyal to the Sunrise gang also claimed that men from Zimbabwe had been terrorising them for months and complained that they were being painted as the aggressors.

“Dem attack we over here all de time with big long guns and dem don’t business who them kill,” another protester said.