Abuja fire victims still counting losses

Isaac Yeboah Jul - 21 - 2013 , 10:58

Some victims of the disaster forced live their lives in the open. Victims of the fire that ravaged the Abuja slum in Accra last Tuesday night are still counting their losses.

With their places of abode gone, the victims have no option but to sleep, eat and do other domestic chores in the open.

They have, therefore, appealed to the government to either allow them to rebuild their homes themselves or come to their aid by providing them with a temporary sleeping place.

A unit committee member of the Odorna Official Town, Chief Alhassan Malik, told the Daily Graphic during the paper’s visit to the area that officials of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly( AMA) and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) visited the scene a day after the disaster and asked the residents not to put up any structures because the authorities had planned to develop the area.

The order by the city authorities has put the residents in an apprehensive state as they do not know what to do to get roofs over their heads.

A fierce fire gutted the Abuja slum near the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) lorry station in Accra last Tuesday.

About 2,000 people were rendered homeless as the wooden structures, which served as the residential and business centres were completely destroyed by the fire which started at about 8pm.

The slum accommodated mostly petty traders, who ply their trade in the central business district of Accra.

Goods and property worth thousands of Ghana cedis were destroyed as the densely populated community was reduced to a vast pile of rubble.

Chief Malik said the victims could not sleep outside any shelters for a long period, therefore, the traders were calling on the AMA to allow them to reconstruct their structures.

He explained that it would take some time for the AMA to finish its design for the place, and added that “the victims cannot sleep in the open for long, especially when some of the victims were nursing mothers and pregnant women”.

“We have nowhere to go as our home has been destroyed by the fire,” said Ms Betty Aryee, who stays at Abuja with her mother and two siblings.

According to her, they spread mats on the floor and slept on them adding “we have lost everything including a huge sum of money because my mother kept her money in the house after every day’s sales”.