Mother likely not alone in blame for squalor

The horror found in a New Carrollton basement on Sunday is no Hollywood “Home Alone” movie. This squalid situation of an immigrant family is not some film fantasy, and it’s surely not a joke.

“The firefighters were literally throwing up, and my stomach was turning,” said New Carrollton Police Chief David Rice of the indescribable filth found in an apartment where five boys ages 6 months to 6 years were home alone.

The boys and a dog where discovered amid animal feces, urine, roaches and molding food when the landlord smelled smoke from food burning.

Note, it was not the obvious stench of sewage that prompted the emergency call but the threat of fire. The suspicion that small children had been in peril for some unknown time must not have been enough to sound the alarm.

Behind the headlines, we must beg the question: What was happening in this home that caused a working mother to leave her young children to fend for themselves in the dead of night? Before we rush to judgment, a lot of important facts must be revealed. The children’s mother may not be the only culpable party.

For sure, someone in that neighborhood had to know something was amiss in the 7600 bock of Topton Street and did nothing to intervene to help this family or report the problem to authorities.

“This was not an overnight event; this has been ongoing for some time,” Chief Rice said.

And, the community?

Amara Eden, 31, the mother of the boys, was arrested Sunday and faces misdemeanor child neglect and animal cruelty charges.

Apparently, this Nigerian immigrant worked from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. at a nursing home, Chief Rice said. He was told, by her landlord, that Miss Eden had left the children alone before and stayed with a boyfriend until recently. Their father is in Africa.

Chief Rice said he became upset during her arrest because he thought Miss Eden asked more questions about her immigration status than about the condition or whereabouts of her children.

But she “freaked out” when she got to the jail and said if she had known that she was going to be arrested when she got home, “she would have been gone,” he said.

Her children were taken to a hospital for checkups and then placed in foster care.

Unable to post the $10,000 bail, Miss Eden is expected to appear before a Prince George’s County judge today. Prosecutors are still deciding whether to upgrade the charges to felonies.

And her landlords, listed as Azmat and Mohammed Asif, Chief Rice said, may be charged with having a home that is a public nuisance and a health hazard.

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