It was the latest in a stepped up campaign of attacks by bandits on the East Coast of Demerara.

Marvis Moore, who lives and operates a shop at Lot 70, President's College Road, Golden Grove, East Coast Demerara, said it was around 12:45 pm as he was about to close his shop when the bandits attacked.

The man said he was about to take his television set into the shop when the two-armed men approached him and one of them pointed a gun to his head.

"I just see dem two man and deh come up to me and one a dem point a gun to me head and tell me nah fo move," the man recalled.

He said the bandits pushed him into the shop and told him to lie flat on the floor.

The man told this newspaper that at first he attempted to lie on his back since he wanted to observe what the men were doing. However, one of the two hit the man in his side informing him that he should lie on his tummy and reminded him not to move.

The man's wife, Hedda, was in the part of the building the family called home when one of the men approached her.

The woman said she was about to take a bath and as she turned to head through the door she came face to face with one of the bandits. She said the man immediately pointed a gun at her and even as she lifted her hands into the air she screamed out.

Moore's brother, Travis Holder who lives close by, heard his sister-in-law scream and called out to his brother asking if he was okay.

The bandit ordered his brother to say everything was cool but even as the man uttered the words his brother realised that something was wrong.

He immediately turned on his lights and started to make noise and in his haste to see what was taking place at his brother's home the man broke a few of his louvre panes and this alerted other persons that something was amiss.

In the meantime the bandit who was with the wife took off her gold chain.

"If you see how he tek off this chain… like if he put it on. You know some a dem woulda bust it off, but he ent do that he tek he time and loose the chain," the woman who is from St Vincent and the Grenadines said. She said she has never experienced such an ordeal.

The two men then picked up the DVD player. They were attempting to take some other items found in the shop but abandoned this idea after residents started to come out. As they made their escape in the direction of the Railway Embankment one of the men fired off a shot in the air. Moore said the police later recovered a spent shell and confirmed that the shot was fired from a 9mm gun.

This is not the first time tragedy has befallen the family. On Diwali night last year their home went up in flames. Moore, who only returned to Guyana in July of last year after working for years in the islands, had come back with his wife and built a house next door to his family's two-storey home. His intention was to start a business. But as fate would have it the man's home along with his family's went up in flames together with his shop. He was able to save a few things including his computer, DVD player and other items. "This just frustrate me more, I come back and you know things deh done hard. I couldn't get a telephone line, no light and den meh house went up in fire. Me now trying to start a little something and now this," the man lamented adding that he had never been robbed before. He said his shop is usually open late in the nights as he would sometimes show videos and the youths in the area would make his shop the liming spot.

And other reports reaching this newspaper indicated that two other robberies were committed on pedestrians in Cove & John and Victoria, both on the East Coast of Demerara.

In the first instance Stabroek News understands that a couple was walking along the Craig Mill Road when bandits attacked them. It is understood that one of the bandits on a bicycle was trailing the couple and it was when they approached a lonely area on the road they were ambushed by the man on the bike and two other men.

Reports stated that the couple was taken into the bushes where they were robbed and the woman was indecently assaulted.

In Victoria a young man was returning from a fete at the Victoria Centre Ground when two men on the main road in the area attacked him. The men, armed with guns, robbed the young man of $600 and a watch. They took his cellular phone but later returned it, reports indicated.

Stabroek News understands that the bandits knowing that the police have stepped up their patrols in the trouble spots are now turning their attention to the villages seldom attacked.