Three women say they and their children have been left traumatised by a suspected arson attack at an International Protection accommodation centre in Drogheda, Co Louth.
The women, who have been moved 12km away to the Mosney accommodation centre, on Sunday said they had hardly slept since the incident.
Gardaí investigating the fire believe an accelerant was used to start it shortly after 8pm. Four children and an adult were rescued from the top floor of the building on George’s Street by firefighters, while 23 others were relocated to alternative accommodation.
Some of the rescued children, including a 20-day-old and a 17-month-old, were taken to hospital for assessment.
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The women, who are from Nigeria and have lived in Drogheda for two years, asked not be photographed or to have their names published.
They said they could not understand how somebody would want to burn 28 people, including little children.
One of the women, a mother of girls aged eight and 12, was at her job as a healthcare assistant at the time. She showed missed WhatsApp calls and messages from her older child from 8.11pm onwards pleading with her to answer.
“THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE. PLEASE ANSWER,” one message stated.
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“I left everything and I just jumped into the road,” the woman said. “One of the sisters drove me home. What I saw was some smoke. My children were trapped upstairs.
“I saw my daughter . . . I wanted to climb the ladder to help her but the fire brigade people said ‘No’. They started bringing them out one by one. I was shouting. I was crying. I was thinking, ‘If they die what will I say to the world?’.”
The woman said they had been living there for two years, her children are doing well in school and she is working.
“Why would someone want to murder us? We never cause trouble for anyone,” she said.
Another mother and resident, who works in a nursing home, had dropped her 17-year-old daughter to a friend’s house and was resting in their ground-floor room when the fire alarm went off.
“I ran to the kitchen. I met one of my neighbours and I said to her: ‘Go and pick your son from your room’. I checked the main door to the hall and when I open it [it] was full of smoke. I ran out to the back. A man called the fire service and they responded swiftly.”
The families were brought to a large house near Termonfeckin on Friday and moved to Mosney on Saturday. The campus is secure, with barriers at the entrance and a security hut.
“This place is lovely, more secure. I want to stay somewhere more secure,” the second woman said.
Until Friday, she said, she had always felt secure in Ireland.
“We never had any cause for concern, not until this happened. I have not slept since Friday,” she said. “I can’t get it out of my head that they could have smashed our bedroom window, could have thrown something into our room.”
A third woman was with her three children – aged six, nine and 11, at church, when she was called and told of the fire at their home.
“The children were crying, asking, ‘Where are we going to sleep?’.”
They cannot go back to their home to retrieve belongings.
“They have no school uniform, no schoolbag, no shoes, no coat. So we have to wait,” she said.
