At least twenty four families in Changamwe, Mombasa were forced to spend Christmas in the cold after their house was reduced to ashes.
The incident occurred during Christmas eve at Migadini area within Changamwe, Mombasa County.
The cause of the fire was not immediately established, however one of the tenants Cyllus Michael says his neighbour was lighting a cooking gas before it burst and the flames quickly spread to the othere 24 rooms leaving totally nothing to salvage.
“I was working when my neighbour gave me the shocking news. Though I decided to rush to the scene I found everything reduced to ashes. I saved totally nothing,” said a teary Michael.
Some tenants had already travelled home upcountry for the festive season this they could salvage nothing during the huge fire.
“We have lost a lot of properties here ranging from electronics, books and school uniforms for our children. The most painful thing is that we have lost our very critical documents like academic certificates and other personal documents that getting them might be a nightmare,” said Michael.
A neighbour, Pascal Odhiambo Kokonya noted that despite efforts to contact Mombasa disaster preparedness committee to attend to the emergency, nothing came forth.
“We spent a whole one hour waiting for a fire extinguisher from Changamwe little did we know that it was not functioning. We called the main fire offices in the CBD which came about an hour later after we had lost everything,” said an angered Kokonya.
Though two fire extinguishers from Mombasa county government arrived later on, they ran out of water giving the locals a long wait for Kenya Navy fire extinguisher from Mtongwe navy base to salvage the situation and extra one hour later.
“If it were not for the County government laxity we could have contained the fire and saved our belongings. Imagine we only managed to save few tomatoes and onions,” he added.
On her part, local leader Alice Njogu noted that Migadini has witnessed such similar occurrences in the past but Mombasa county government has sluggishly handled the situations.
“I have witnessed over six similar incidents in this area. Houses completely burnt in Kipevu, Mbuyuni, Customs and in Changamwe, all the houses were reduced to rubbles since we could not get any emergency response from the county emergency response team,” said Njogu.
She appealed to the National and County government as well as humanitarian body Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) to extended humanitarian aid to the fire victims.
