By Sorie Ibrahim Fofanah
A twenty-two room corrugated iron-sheet building at Savaga Street, Freetown was around 1700 GMT Tuesday 14th November completely gutted by fire, leaving many homeless.
One of the affected persons,Musa Bayoh told Politico that some co-tenants believed it was caused by either electrical fault or flames from cooking . ”There were no death and no injuries,” he said, saying lot of property got burnt including the money he saving in a special box.
He said some humanitarian organizations are helping them with food and he is currently sheltering at a friend’s.
He could not confirm the number of people living in the household, but said they were many.
Rugiatu Kamara, another victim said she was not around at the time the fire started from an adjacent apartment but upon being alerted she jumped onto a commercial bike from Abacha Street and rushed home.
“When I reached home, I called my husband. We started removing our property,” she said, adding that she misplaced her husband’s money during that process, noting it was one thousand five hundred United States dollars. Kamara said the money was in their wardrobe.
She said an unknown lady that was later found to have come from nearby Bailey Street was helping them remove their property. “My husband had initially not wanted the lady to help us, but I insisted,” she maintained.
After we were done with transporting our property to a safer place, my husband later asked me for the money, it was only then we had to search all through without any trace’’, she said.
Kamara said when the helper of a woman later showed up, her brother-in-law confronted the woman and tricked her into believing that CCTV camera had spotted her taking the money.
Kamara said the lady was left with no option but to admit taking the money. ”She had to return the money that very night with the exact amount,” she added.
Kadie Kamanda, another victim of the fire incident said they were sitting outside chatting when they heard people shouting “fire!”
“We were more than fifty people living here. I have eleven family members,” Kamanda said, adding that all her property got burnt. ”Up till now, my children are not going to school because all their school uniforms and materials were destroyed,” she said.
She said they are being fed by kind persons, and called for more assistance from the public.
Osman Kamara, a family head of seven said everything in his place including 30 million old Leones entrusted to him for safe keeping got burnt. ”I am a businessman, and I have an urgent contract to supply huge number of t-shirts. I use my money to buy those t-shirts and get my money refunded later,” Kamara said.
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