Fire at Juba’s Konyo-Konyo Market
Wednesday, 18 July 2012 06:50 Mabior Mach South Sudan >>> . Fire has damaged Juba's main market, Konyo-Konyo. The fire started at 6 o'clock on Tueasday evening, burning six shops dealing in clothes and merchandise on the eastern side of the market. No one was injured in the blaze. This is the second major fire at the market in 4 months. The cause of the fire has not yet been established, but eyewitnesses told Radio Miraya that the fire might have resulted from a short circuit in a generator's electric wires. Traders whose shops burnt, said they lost thousands of pounds. "I have two shops where I sell clothes. Yesterday at 6:00pm, fire broke out and burnt two of my shops including others and I have lost around SSP 85 thousand. I arrived when the whole shop had caught fire. All my clothes got burnt. I didn't salvage any. [In] the previous fire that burnt the market [in March], I lost 75 thousand pounds. The fire extinguishers came with two trucks and helped to put out the fire. I appeal to the government to help compensate us even if little," said Mohamed Hassan. "I had already gone home then I was called on phone that my shop had caught fire and when I arrived I got the whole shop had already burnt. There were clothes and phones in the shop. The phones total to 30 thousand and the clothes total to 35 thousand. The cause of the fire is said to be a faulty generator which failed to turn off after starting and later burst into flames," said another trader Athaib Abdallah. The Chairperson of Konyo Konyo Market Traders Union, Jamal Hakim Wani, said the market should be re-demarcated to allow fire brigade trucks to easily access the market in case of such emergencies. He also said the traders had been warned against using private generators. "Three weeks ago we went to Konyo Konyo market to stop the people from using generators and private power sources, because the last incident of fire outbreak in the market was as a result of generators and people incurred a lot of losses. So we are writing to all the traders to agree with us. So if they also refused to agree, we shall request the government to intervene to help us stop people from using generators because the power sources they use are not provided by the government," said Hakim. South Sudan's capital Juba is yet to have a reliable power supply. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
