Ricketts River, Westmoreland – In the ongoing tragedy of children being left unattended and losing their lives in house fires, residents of this small sugar community in Frome, Westmoreland woke up to the news Sunday morning that they had lost two of their youngest citizens to a fiery death.

What made the deaths of infants, Serena Brown, 2 and Lamar Bennett, 4, even more gut-wrenching, according to many, is the alleged neglect of their mother, Latoya Ennis, 28, who has since left the area and is being sought by the police.

Ennis, they alleged, was known to habitually leave her infant children alone at nights.

“Every night she left the pickney dem gone,” said sister Novelette “Little One” Ennis. “Wi tired fi talk to har, wi tired fi call police but she wouldn’t hear.”

Novelette occupies a two-bedroom house in the same yard where her sister’s children lost their lives in the wee hours of Sunday morning; she was not at home at the time. She said her sister’s three-apartment board house had caught fire at least four times previously when she had left the children unattended, resulting in the Child Development Agency (CDA) becoming involved.

“Them (CDA representatives) come here two times and because them no see har them left,” she told the Observer.

Neighbours said they were awaken at around 3:30 Sunday morning to fire coming from the dilapidated structure which Ennis shared with her four children. The two older children, 8 and 7 years old, were not at the house.

“By the time mi wake up the whole place under fire,” said Donovan Johnson, a next door neighbour. “Mi tun fool.” He said he had to remove furniture from his dwelling, which threatened to catch fire as Ennis’ house blazed.

The distraught uncle of the dead children, Oakland Ennis, yesterday came to his sister’s defence. He said he had spoken to her and she said she had not left a lighted candle, which she used for fuel, in the house. He said he was convinced that the fire had been the act of an arsonist.

However, neighbours found this argument preposterous, their anger at Ennis overshadowed by their grief at the death of the children.

“Mi prefer that the house did burn down flat and the children dem save,” said the next door neighbour, a sentiment echoed by Ennis’ sister.

Neighbours admitted that Ennis had a difficult time single-handedly caring for the children whose fathers were not supporting them.