By Bill W. Cooper
Report reaching the Inquirer newspaper says at least three children comprising two boys and a girl have reportedly died in a tragic fire incident in Cooper Farm, Rehab Community along the Roberts Filed Highway in Paynesville.
According to information gathered, the children, between the ages of 8, 11 and 17 years old met their untimely demise when a three-bedroom was gutted by fire within the above mentioned vicinity.
Some eyewitness spoken to attributed the cause of the raging fire to an electrical shock circuit about 11:52 p.m. of Tuesday night.
According to them, when the house was ablaze, they placed a call to the Liberia National Fire Service (LNFS) for help but proved futile; something which they described as embarrassing to the country and its citizenry.
“You will not believe that after calling the fire service, they told us that there was no water in all of their fire trucks and if that is to be believed, then where are we heading to as a people and country whose lives are to be protected at all times by their government,” the bystanders wondered.
“We are really broken and hurt this morning because if the fire service would have come timely, our relatives couldn’t have died just like that. I can still believe that the Fire Service will tell us that they never had water in the tankers to come and rescue our children,” a brother of one of the deceased said.
According to him, aside from the death of his brother and others, the fire also destroyed all of their belongings which include properties, money and other important documents and are now left with nothing to be able to sustain him and other affected individuals.
“We don’t even know how our children will be buried or will manage to rent new place because none of us have any other means of generating money and this is so heartbreaking and sad,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, the victims are at the same time calling on the Liberia National Red Cross, the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and other humanitarian organizations to get to their aid during their critical and troubling times.
