Several traders in Kiganda Zone, Kisenyi II Parish in Kampala Central Division have lost billions of shillings in an early morning fire that gutted their stalls and stores.
Property worth millions of shillings has perished in a fire that gutted part of Kisenyi area next to Pastor David Kiganda’s Church in the wee hours of Monday morning.
Among the items that perished include; maize mills, poultry feeds stores, and maize stores, among others. Several people were injured while rescuing their belongings in a fire that engulfed their property
It is suspected that the fire broke out around 2:00 am-4:00 am and by the time the fire brigade team arrived, it only managed to prevent further damage as other items had been burnt to ashes.
Traders in the area, say there may be evil people burning them with the intention of evicting them from the area. They allege that there have been unidentified people patrolling the area every night
Security has been beefed up at the site of the inferno to avoid looting.
At exactly 7:00am, most of the affected traders were already at the scene but they couldn’t save anything since all their merchandise had been burnt to ashes.
The Fire Brigade Police also struggled to put out the fire, which had gutted maize mills, poultry feeds stores and maize stores, among others, amid lack of enough water.
An eye witness and trader, told this msnews that the fire, whose cause had not been identified by press time, started at around 4:00am in the morning, however, said he was disappointed that the police did not respond in time.
“We called them at around 4:45am and they arrived at 6:50am. This place is less than a kilometre away from the Police Fire Brigade headquarters,” he said.
Other traders, who talked to this msnews, called upon the government to investigate the motive behind the frequent fires that have destroyed their merchandise in the area in the last one year.
The traders said the fire could have been started by individuals whose motive is to grab the land.
“We have been receiving warnings from individuals, asking us to vacate this piece of land or else await what is coming our way,” traders said.
Another trader, who preferred to only be called Shadia who lost several bags of maize flour, wondered why they have been a target of frequent fires.
“Our merchandise has been burnt three times. The first time, fire gutted our stores was in February last year, the second one was in August 2022 and now this is the third one,” she added.
