Woman, baby escape fire from Molotov cocktail attack
SIBU: Firemen rescued a 22year-old woman and her baby boy early yesterday after their detached house at Lane 15 in Rejang Park caught fire i n what was believed to be arson involving an outstanding debt.
Fire razed a car in the car porch and also the ground floor of the premises. The affected car porch was partially collapsed.
The woman and her son aged one year and seven months were in a room upstairs when the fire broke out.
The woman surnamed Ting said she went down to check on noises she heard at around 12.30am.
She returned to her room when she saw nothing amiss.
“A few minutes later, the house was blacked out and I heard noises like fireworks and broken glass,” she said.
Scared, she carried her boy to the balcony at the back of the house and shouted at a neighbour for help.
“When the neighbor did not show up, I carried my boy and climb over to the neighbour’s balcony for safety,” she said.
Ting added that firemen thereafter rescued her and her son.
Her mother-in-law had gone out and her 29-year-old unemployed husband was in Kuching at the time of the incident.
According to a neighbour, a man came on a motorcycle and hurled a Molotov cocktail at the victim’s house.
He said the Molotov cocktail, presumably a bottle with a wick for an incendiary device, was not lit.
“Fire broke out when the man returned later,” the neighbour said.
The fire blackened the roofing of the car porch at the neighbouring house.
A window glass panel at the living room of the neighbour’s house was also broken due to the heat from the fire.