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Elegu market fire destroys business kiosks

(Last Updated On: 13 February 2019)

A deadly fire has on Monday morning destroyed several businesses in the South Sudan-Uganda border market of Elegu leaving hundreds of people stranded in Amuru district.

According to the acting Mayor of Elegu town, Michael Okema, the fire is believed to have started from a local food restaurant at around 3:30am and spread to over 30 businesses on Odongkara road, next to the fence of the police station.

He beleived that the fire started when food sellers were cooking early morning on Monday.

“The fire started from a bamboo-papyrus made food kiosk next to police fence and burnt merchandises including clothes, groceries among others belonging to unknown numbers of people,” Okema said

He cited that the incident could have occurred accidentally as food sellers are forced to start daily operation as early as 3:00am in their quest to respond to the high demand of food at the border.

One of the police officers at Elegu station who could not authoritatively speak to our reporter, says the fire was too much and the police fire fighters available were ill-equipped with only extinguishers and “could not manage the fire not until when community joined hands to destroy some of the structures to stop the deadly fire from spreading”.  

ASP Jimmy Patrick Okema – the police spokesman for Aswa region confirmed the incident. He said a total of 36 houses have been destroyed.

“Out the 36, 33 got burnt. Houses comprise of shops, saloon, wood workshop, residential place, tailoring school, clinics, stalls and residential. The rest were destroyed by people to prevent fire from spreading,” Okema confirmed.

He said preliminary investigation states that the fire started after electrical short-circuits.

The region’s police spokesman noted that since last year when fire team was installed in Elegu, the officers do  not have water tanker to manage incidents of fire outbreak despite the fact that fire outbreak in Elegu has become an annual occurrences due to hot temperature and congestions.

He requested the police headquarters to ensure Elegu police has separate water tanker for managing incidences of fire outbreak given that region’s head quarter is very far and is sharing just one water truck.

Fire outbreak at Elegu market for the last three consecutive years have devastated businesses’ value worth in millions  and have left many traders to exit the border market.

The incidences normally happenl during dry season when temperature is very high.

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