GRIEF and anger were palpable in the Central Kingston community of Smith Lane on Saturday as it was confirmed that seven-year-old Keriecia Hutchinson and her four-year-old brother Samson Cameron had perished in a mid-morning house fire.

Residents remembered the two children who they said were promising and full of life while anger surged as people assigned blame for their deaths.

Keriecia was a grade one student at Calabar All-Age School, while Samson was a student of Calabar Basic School.

“The mother locked them up in the house and gone to a wholesale. She could have just left them out and asked any of wi to look on them,” charged one neighbour who, like her colleagues, refused to give their names.

The house at Smith Lane in Central Kingston where seven-year-old Keriecia Hutchinson and her four-year-old brother Samson Cameron perished in a mid-morning fire Saturday. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

“The mother do nothing wrong, the [son’s] father was here and him run go up there [to the room] before the fire get wicked and him run down back and say him can’t reach the children,” charged another neighbour.

Police on the scene refused to speak with the media to confirm or deny either claim, but the contention morphed into a physical battle between one woman — who was defending the children’s grandmother — and another female resident who was chastising the parents.

Police on the scene fired a number of shots in the air to separate the combatants and at least three people were later taken into custody.

But for most residents in Smith Lane the death of the two children was their main concern.

“Right yah now me feel really, really sad that the two kids lose them lives,” said one of the few residents willing to speak to the media on condition that she not be named.

“What I get to understand, the mother wasn’t here, she gone to the wholesale, but why did she lock the children inside? And when people call out and the father run inside, the door lock, and is like him forget the key so him panic. So when the door finally open and people a throw water — even me a throw out water — it did not save the children. It really, really sad,” said the woman.

She told the Jamaica Observer that Keriecia moved to live with her mother in Smith Lane when she was about two years old, while the son, “him a must be about four or five years old now, and him born right here so inna mi hand”, added the neighbour.

She said many residents tried to put the blaze out before the Jamaica Fire Brigade team arrived but they were unsuccessful.

Residents also had praise for a neighbour who they said soaked himself in water before entering the burning house after being told that the children were inside, but he was unable to rescue them.

“He is a hero, man. Him really try, but the children were not in the front room, they were in the back, and the little girl died hugging her brother trying to save him. You could see she was trying to help him,” said one man, who, like others, refused to give his name.

At press time Saturday the fire brigade had not determined the cause of the blaze, while there was no word on whether the people involved in the physical altercation had been charged.

An unofficial count by the Sunday Observer has shown four children have died in fires across the island since the start of this year.