>Armed gunmen

Gunmen rob Annandale family
By Jaime Hall

Robbed: Sybil Basant (left) and her mother- in- law Ann Basant (right)

Armed gunmen around noon yesterday attacked and robbed an Annandale, East Coast Demerara family of over $30,000 in cash and jewelry. The bandits also beat two of the family members who were taken to hospital where they were treated for injuries they sustained during the attack.

Injured were watchman, Rupo Basant and his son Chano. They were both beaten in the abdomen by the gunmen, a relative reported.

According to one of the robbery victims, Ann Basant, 76, of Sand Reef, Annandale, she had just finished eating lunch and went to rest in a hammock under the house when she heard her son "Chano" appealing to someone saying "Ow man, ah we propa poor, we na gat nothing."

He was pleading to the gunmen who came from the direction of Buxton, entered their yard and demanded money and jewelry, she explained.

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Basant recalled one of the men saying "all yuh get up and get and bring all wah all yuh gat and bring am, or we gon shoot you."

The tearful woman said she then got up and saw about four men heavily armed with guns who were already in the yard. She recounted that one of them demanded that she hand over all she had, but she told the gunman she was a pensioner and is very poor.

The gunman further demanded that she get out of the hammock and go into the house and hand over what ever valuables were there. Basant who is suffering from a stroke did not heed the demand because she was unable to move around without a walking aid (frame).

The Basant family home that was ransacked by bandits

She said the gunman then inquired if anyone else was in the house. She told him her grandson was there. The gunman instructed that the boy come down stairs, which he eventually did but begged the bandits not to harm him because the family was very poor and did not have any money. Basant said the men threatened to shoot her grandson if he did not give them money.

The grandson, she said, does not have a permanent job and does not earn money on a regular basis, she explained. He sometimes goes out to sea with fishermen to work and earn some money, she said.

She added that as the gunmen continue to advance to her she took out $400,00 she had in her possession and handed it over to them.

The gunmen ransacked the lower flat of the house where Basant’s son Chano and her daughter-in- law live. The daughter-in-law who was not at home at the time of the robbery said she lost about $10,000 in cash and jewelry worth about $20,000. The men, after collecting the cash and jewelry left the premises and went back to Buxton.

Basant and her family live alongside a dam, which separates Annandale from Buxton. Police are investigating the matter.

January 14, 2003