In a single casket, Vanessa Chinapoo and the baby she gave birth to before they died will be buried.

Their funeral will be held together with the five other victims who perished when fire destroyed their home at McBean, Couva, last Saturday morning.

All seven victims will be buried following a service tomorrow at the Bethlehem Tabernacle, Chase Village, Chaguanas.

Chinapoo, 32, her three children-13-year-old Sarah; Chayim, ten; and Moses, eight; Shantelle Dixon, 22; and two-year-old Elijah Narine perished in the blaze, which broke out just after midnight on Saturday.

They were asleep in the top-floor apartment at a home in McBean, Couva. The ground floor of the building housed a business and Play Whe outlet.

Chinapoo’s husband, Daren Dixon, was the lone survivor.

He said he tried helping the family escape and thought they had gotten out alive.

The baby would have been the couple’s first child. Police believe Chinapoo, who was eight months’ pregnant, went into labour and delivered the baby before she died.

Chinapoo’s sister, Verna Darmaine, said yesterday: ’We have set the funerals for Thursday. We want to do all the same day, so they can all be buried together.’

Fire officials were, up to yesterday, trying to determine what triggered the blaze since an electrical fault has been ruled out.

-Carolyn Kissoon