“Sometimes, when I go to bed, I get scared. Anytime I hear the zinc make a sound in the night, I would panic. I still don’t feel safe.” Shazeda Khan.?By Dale AndrewsIf anyone had not known of a place called Lusignan, they certainly do now. The events of January 26, 2008 certainly made the village a household name, for all the wrong reasons.Survivors Howard and Ron Thomas have to endure the scars they sustained every time they look in the mirror. On that day, a gang of gunmen unleashed almost 15 minutes of such savagery that even the atrocities of the early 1950s appear to pale in comparison.Eleven persons, including children, were slaughtered in their beds by gunmen carrying shotguns and the deadly AK-47 assault rifles.So graphic were the scenes that day that the entire country was plunged into a state of shock.To date, no one knows for sure the real motive for the attack, although it was reported that the now dead notorious killer Rondell ‘Fine Man’ Rawlins had claimed responsibility for the attack, declaring it an act of vengeance for the disappearance of his girlfriend and unborn baby.The gunmen struck at around 01:30 hours early on that Saturday, simultaneously kicking down the doors of five houses and slaughtering almost everyone they encountered.Three persons were also injured, while at least three persons escaped certain death by hiding, as the gunmen carried out their rampage.In 15 minutes of terror, the gunmen, who numbered approximately 20, all armed with rifles and shotguns, massacred their victims, in one case an entire family comprising a mother and her two sleeping children.Among the dead were Shazam Mohamed; Clarence Thomas, his son, Ron 11, and daughter, Vanessa 12; Mohandai Gourdat, 32, and her two children, Seegobin, four years old, and Seegopaul Harilall, 10; Shalem Baksh, 52; Rooplall Seecharan, 56, his daughter Raywattie Ramsingh, 11, and his wife, Dhanrajie, called ‘Sister’, 52.The injured were Howard Thomas 19; Nadir Mohamed, 48, and Roberto Thomas, five years old.Most of the dead victims were shot in their stomachs, and were left lying in pools of blood which covered most of the floors of their modest homes.Some of the survivors still have the scars that are stark reminders of the brutality and terror they endured.One year later, while the village has returned to some level of normalcy, the memories of that fateful day in 2008 will never go away.Rajkumar Harrylall has only photographs to remind him of his family.Families of the victims have already done their “memorial work”, and in the midst of it all is a feeling of oneness, as every villager feels the loss in some way or the other.Fourteen-year-old Shazeda Baksh is thankful that her father, Shalim, gave his life to save those of the rest of his family.Shalem Baksh was pulled from under a bed where he, his wife Bibi and daughter were hiding, and was shot dead.Shazeda recalls that she was in her bed when she heard the gunshots.She had called out to her mother, who was with her father downstairs, and her parents, who had also heard the shots, joined her on the upper flat of their house.The men ordered the family to open their door, but the family was too terrified to make another move.Within seconds, their front louvre windows were shattered and some of the men entered.“I went into the last room and we hid under the bed. My mother first, me, and then my father. He was so big that he did not fit comfortably under the bed. When they (gunmen) came in, they saw his foot and told him to come out. They asked for the rest of us and he told them that we were downstairs,” Shazeda said.The gunmen went downstairs and sprayed the apartment with bullets before returning upstairs.When the killers put the first bullet into her father’s body, which was lying inches away from her, Shazeda could see his body twitching as the slugs penetrated his flesh.Her father had begged the killers to spare his life, but after pumping him with bullets, they fired several shots under the bed, none of which found the intended target.“While I was under the bed, I knew they would kill my father. After they left,Cheap Soccer Jerseys Free Shipping, my father was trying to say something but no words came out of his mouth. He came out (from under the bed) and saved us all. If he didn’t, they would have checked under the bed and found us and kill us,” Shazeda said.No one would doubt her theory, since another survivor recalled hearing the men being instructed to ‘kill everybody’.Vishnu Seecharran is a thankful survivor.Shazeda is a fourth form student preparing to write her CXC examinations next year. She admitted that it would be a stressful period for her.“Mommy still cries a lot, and sometimes I cry, too. My friends at school try not to mention it,” she said.“Sometimes, when I go to bed, I get scared. Anytime I hear the zinc make a sound in the night, I would panic