May 7, 2015

2 siblings killed, 15-room apartment razed by fire from candle light

Anguish was the lot of the people of Ulakwo, Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State, following the death of two sons of the same parents, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Ishiguzo, in a fire disaster that reportedly began from a lit candle stick.

News men investigations revealed that apart from the death of the duo, property worth millions of naira were also consumed in the raging inferno, which completely destroyed the 15-room building that housed the Ishiguzos and other tenants.
An aggrieved tenant, who identified herself as Miss Oluchi Echeibe, recalled that the fire started from a candle lit by the Ishiguzos in their room.

She said: “The fire was caused by a lighted candle stick. Our neighbour, Mr. and Mrs. Ishiguzo, lit a candle stick, locked up their five children in their room and went out.
‘’The candle burnt out and ignited the rug and other materials in the room.”
According to the lady, while three of the children were successfully rescued from the burning room, two of their siblings were burnt to death. 6-month old dead
While giving the ages of the two boys as three years and the other, six months, Miss Echeibe also lamented that “nobody knew when the room went up in flames because we had all retired to our respective rooms.”

On how they got wind of the inferno, Echeibe said it was one of the children in the yard that heard the distress cries of the Ishiguzo kids inside the room and alerted the neighbourhood.
Echeibe lamented that she lost everything she had laboured for over the years in the fire.
She said: “Before we knew what was happening, the entire building went up in flames and we ran out, leaving everything behind in our respective rooms.

“I do not know where to start from. All my belongings were lost in the fire.”
Corroborating Echeibe’s account, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, Mr. Kingsley Okere, of Agballa Police Division, recalled that he had already gone to sleep when he was suddenly woken up by an unusual noise from within the compound.

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