New Vision (Kampala)
Raymond Baguma and Patrick Okino
1 November 2009
Kampala — A FAMILY of five, including three children, died yesterday morning when their house caught fire in Bwaise, a Kampala suburb.
The Police believes the victims died of suffocation from smoke. The dead were Safina Nakawunde, the mother, and Shamim Kayanja Nalule, an aunt to the children.
The children were Hakim Kiganda, 2, Fazil Kiganda, 7, and Fazirat Nassaazi, 4. The Police arrived at the scene after the fire and took the bodies to the City Mortuary at Mulago.
The Police said the fire had not spread to the bedroom where all the bodies were found. The children lay still on one bed, where they had died in their sleep. The bodies of the adults lay on the floor.
Nakawunde, a wholesale trader in Bwaise next to Eden Service Park, was the caretaker of the gutted house located in Lufula Zone.
The semi-detached house has self-contained units that are rented out. The rented rooms did not catch fire.
Nakawunde was wife to Wahab Kiganda, who was not at home at the time of the incident. The Police said Kiganda had spent the night at the home of his second wife.
The Lufula area secretary for defence, Fred Musoke, said it had rained the previous night and he only got to know of the deaths at around 5:00am.
For most part of yesterday, gun-wielding policemen stood on guard to prevent neighbours from accessing the house.
Some residents said they heard screams at night but mistook the noise to be from the youth watching movies at a makeshift video hall next to the house.
Nasser Kayanja, a young brother to Nakawunde and resident of Nateete, said that the fire is suspected to have started from the TV set in the house, which exploded into flames as the family slept. The fire also destroyed a DVD player and sofa set.
Maureen Atuhaire, the Kawempe district Police commander, said: "The cause of the fire is not well established but we are investigating."
A male tenant, who did not identify himself, said he had returned at 11:00pm the previous night (Saturday) and found the main gate to the house locked.
He then called out Shamim, who opened for him. In the morning, the tenant noticed smoke from the unit in which the landlady and her family slept. He called her mobile phone to alert her but no one answered, he narrated.
The house's interior, the glass window panes, ceiling, wooden sideboard and walls were covered in soot. A blue plastic chair had melted on the floor.
Meanwhile in Lira, a similar tragedy struck Core village in Adekokwok sub-county yesterday when two children were burnt to ashes in a hut.
The victims were Emmanuel Ejore, 7, and Calvin Ejom, 9, both pupils of Ngetta Girls primary school. One child only identified as Onyolo was admitted at Ngetta health unit in critical condition.
Peter Oree said the cause of the fire that killed his nephews was unknown.
Following the incident that occurred at 2:00am, the Police arrested Vicky Acen, the boys' step-mother for questioning.
Their father, Tom Anot, who is a teacher at St John Bosco Technical School Ngetta, was away at the time of the tragedy.
"We learnt of the incident after a phone call. But how the fire started and who was responsible for it we can not tell," Oree explained.
Angry residents who gathered at the scene blamed Acen for the inferno. But her husband dismissed the claim, saying his wife used to take good care of the children.
"We have been staying together peacefully and I don't expect her (Acen) to commit such act," Anot said, adding that he had gone to the village to see the mother of the victims, his first wife.
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