Fire incidents on the rise, what are authorities doing?

By Shanta Sih

In 2022, several fire incidents were recorded and several families were rendered homeless and businesses were lost.

The year 2023 is barely a week old and already, several fire incidents have been recorded. One of them was in Limbe Bobende with so many war victims who had left villages to start a new life rendered homeless.

A day after the Bobende disaster, January 05, 2023 , council workers in Sabongarri Nwa sub division were accused of burning down the only existing market. This left many withouyt a source of livelihood.

“We have for long pleaded to have a market which was finally granted now same market they gave us, they themselves burnt it. Normally every market needs people who fix shades and gather dirt but the council wants to handle everything now see what has happened. The council Police were trying to clean the market and rearrange some of the shades and accidentally set the market on fire,” Jude Ngwai a businessman in Sabongarri narrated.

Victims are crying out to the government to try assisting them financially so they get back on their feet and are also government to set up a strong stable fire fighting team like they had been promised last year.

“I really sometimes sit and wonder how these people are going to pick up life again. Imagine investing millions into a business and everything is on fire and burns down to ashes in just few seconds. This is equal to killing a man totally. I ask myself why the Cameroon government can not even for once maybe set up charity works to help assist fire victims,” Chiembong Christel, an inhabitant of the area says.

With the new year a few days old already, inhabitants of the crisis-hit North West and South West regions are calling on competent authorities to get to work so that they do not keep suffering as they have been doing whenever a fire breaks out.