NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 28 – Conventionally world over, when a disaster occurs, the first responders are expected to offer a hand of help.
At dawn Thursday morning, a section of Gikomba market in Nairobi was on fire, as a result claiming 15 lives and injuring more than 70 others who were rushed to various health facilities for treatment.
But instead of helping, responders offered the exact opposite.
“Gikomba has so many bystanders waiting for anything to happen and cash on it…” Mark Wangai, one of the affected traders said.
When the fire broke out at 2.30am, traders and security guards manning adjacent flats to the affected timber yard say they were “shocked” how hundreds of youths came stealing anything in their sight.
Like vultures, they said, the gluttonous lot ready to scavenge, took advantage of every moment as distressed traders and occupants of the flats not only tried to rescue their property but their lives.
“They did not come to rescue but to steal,” Wangai said.
A security guard manning a six-storey apartment, housing furniture stores, and single rooms, was worried that “the thugs” will break inside and cause havoc to the residents.
“He called the owner, who advised he locks the main gate,” one of the tenants, who did not want to be named said.
The said tenant has a store in the building.
By this time, angry flames of fire were spreading all over as smoke billowed to their rooms.
In his wisdom, the security guard as advised by the owner thought he will save the occupants from stealing goons but he was wrong.
“He realized when it was too late. The metallic gate was red hot and no one could have dared to approach it,” the tenant said.
He ran for his life.
Nine people suffocated to death among them an unknown number of children who were in their rooms.
“The staircase was full of smoke and darkness since the power grid was adversely affected,” another store owner within the building said.
Some of those who died, security guards and other tenants in adjacent flats say, “went back to salvage some of their belongings.”
“You see, one would run for safety but would return after realizing others were heading towards their rooms to steal,” a security guard said.
The fire said to have started spontaneously from four different places.
“Wakora (thugs) complicated things for us. Maybe we would not have had cases of deaths,” Bernard Kariuki, a trader said.
But what caused the fire? Is it a case of arson or an accident?
This was just another incident, in a series of similar heart-wrenching ones, which seem to have a pattern.
There are those who claim that some ‘private developers’ could be eyeing the prime land on which the market is situated “and would do anything to frustrate the traders.”
Late last year, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the Director of Criminal Investigations to probe the perennial fire incidents in Gikomba.
Months later, nothing is known of the said probe or whether it even started.
On Thursday, Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja renewed the calls and urged the new DCI George Kinoti to unravel the mystery.
“This matter should be probed with the same zeal the DCI is dealing with corruption,” Sakaja said.
He wondered, “How can a fire start from different places spontaneously?” – A question shared widely by a majority of traders who spoke to Capital FM News.
If it is a case of arson, will there be justice for the 15 lives lost?
Gikomba is a source of livelihood for thousands of Kenyans.