A Filipina care worker has said she will not leave her Co Antrim home after it was targeted in a race hate attack because she doesn’t “know where is safe”.
Lanai Molina (45) was working at a care home when a brick was thrown through the front window of her house in Ballyclare shortly after 12am yesterday.
The same person or people are believed to have thrown a brick through the windscreen of her car, parked outside the property on Erskine Park. Police are treating the matter as a racially-motivated hate crime.
Ms Molina said she forgave whoever was to blame.
She added: “I hope you don’t do this to anyone again. You don’t know what you’re doing.
“I came here to take care of your people. I will not harm your people and I am not a bad person. I just do my job.”
The well-wisher said the attack was not in their name
The single mother, a former mechanical engineer who moved to Northern Ireland in February after almost 20 years in Dubai, received a text from her eight-year-old daughter’s nanny explaining what had happened, but she was unable to read it until the end of her shift at 7.30am.
Ms Molina said: “I still feel nervous because I have a daughter, and I don’t know who did this. What if she had been here when it happened? The upstairs window is close to where she sleeps, so that worries me because there is damage to the roof. It looks like a brick missed an upstairs window.
“I’m really shocked and scared. I don’t know when it will happen again. Maybe when my daughter is here and we are sleeping.”
Her daughter, Jelleine, was staying with a friend when the attack happened but is normally in the property with her nanny.
Her frightened mother delayed picking her up until the window had been repaired and the shattered glass cleaned up.
“I don’t want her to witness what happened here. She doesn’t know,” she said.
“I don’t want her to feel bad. I want to keep this a secret from her because she will be sad, worried and scared. I will bring her home later like normal, as if nothing happened.
“I don’t want her to have a bad image of people. She loves people here and has so many classmates in the neighbourhood. She really enjoys living here.”
Damage to the front window (Picture by PressEye)
Ms Molina also praised a neighbour who “came and gave me a hug”.
She said: “They are really sad about what happened.
“I have another very good neighbour who I went to this morning and said, ‘Please help me’. He came straight away and spoke with me. He did not think twice. He phoned the police and helped me with my landlord.
“I feel like they are with me and are concerned too.”
An anonymous well-wisher also posted a card through her letterbox reading: “Not in my name. We are so sorry that this has happened to you. Whoever did this does not represent our neighbourhood. God Bless.”
Ms Molina said while she was grateful for the support, she did not feel safe.
She told how she had received text messages from her worried mum and siblings just hours before she was targeted.
They asked her to be careful after watching news bulletins at home in the Philippines about the violence in Northern Ireland.
Ms Molina said: “I told them ‘I’m okay because I live in Ballyclare and it is far from Belfast’, and then suddenly it happened to me.
“I will stay here because I don’t have anywhere else to go and I have no family here, but I don’t know where is safe for us.
“This is happening everywhere, and I know colleagues who have been targeted in other places”.
Damage to the car (Picture by PressEye)
Ms Molina believes whoever was behind the attack must have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs because she can’t imagine “a normal person” doing what they did.
She remains convinced that the wider community “is good” and is relying on her faith to get her through.
“I really feel scared, but you have to decide if the fear goes into your heart or your mind,” she said.
“Everything happens for a reason. God is with me and I will just take this situation as a trial in our lives.
“I like this country and I like this area, so I will continue my service because I love caring for people. This is the reason why I am here.”
It was reported earlier this week that around 10 nurses in the Belfast Trust were considering leaving Northern Ireland because they no longer felt safe.
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