Chamber of Commerce in Yei River County of Central Equatoria State confirms burning of three shops to ashes, in Dar-el Salaam market.
Chairperson Edward Lugala Mathew reports that the incident happened at around 8:30 PM.
He suspects smokers of cigarettes for causing the fire.
“An accident occurred in Yei at Dar-El-Salam market at 8; 30 PM. We found that the shops for Abdal Ali Letif, Muhammed Ibrahim and Aballa Letif, got burnt. The goods which got burnt are mixed and the owners couldn’t recall all the property, including money they lost. So I came to the market to investigate how the fire occurred. We noticed that the area doesn’t have electricity. I don’t know where the fire came from. But I think the fire outbreak might have been caused by smokers”, said Lugala.
One of the eyewitnesses Daniel Anyang said the people around the scene tried to put off the fire, but could not rescue the shops from burning.
“The fire started from the three shops. The shop in the middle was having too much fire. So young people, both male and female and children joined hands and broke the door to put off the fire. Behind the shops, there was a house which contains grinding meal, diesel and petrol. If the people didn’t intervene, all the shops around the three shops which were burning would have been burnt to ashes”, Anyang recalled.
Yei River County Police Chief Inspector, Dominic Sabino Tobo, estimates that at least five hundred and eighteen thousand goods at the three shops got burnt including 150 US Dollars.
This is the second time shops in Yei got burnt without knowing the cause of the fire.
In 2019, a similar incident of fire outbreak occurred in Sobe market, where several shops and different commodities including phones, scholastic materials clothes and other goods were destroyed.