Fire at Agomanya Ablotsi kills 2 children
Two children, Elsie Asa Apedo, 5, and her younger brother, Elton Yao Apedo, 3, both pupils of the Agomanya Coastland Assemblies of God Church Preparatory School, died yesterday in a fire outbreak at Agomanya Ablotsi, a suburb of Odumase Krobo.
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The bodies have been deposited at the Agormanya St. Martins Hospital morgue awaiting autopsy.
The mother of the children, Ms Evelyn Nakotey, a nurse of the Agomanya St. Martin’s Hospital, had a second degree burn and is on admission at the same hospital.
She got burnt on the trunk, the two arms, the face, the back, the right foot and other parts of the body.
According to the Odumase – Krobo District Commander of the Ghana Police Service, ASP Harry Serlomey, around 9.00p.m. yesterday, the police had a distress call from the Kpong Fire Service that there was fire outbreak at Agormanya Ablotsi, a suburb of Odumase – Krobo.
He said the police mobilised personnel and went to the scene but the fire had already been put out when they got there with the two kids burnt beyond recognition, while their mother also sustained burns.
According to ASP Selormey, information the police gathered indicated that the lights were off in the Agomanya Ablotsi area in the night and the mother lit mosquito coil and placed it in a bowl in the room.
ASP Selormey said the mother went out to buy food for the children who were asleep.
When she was returning to the house, she realised that her rooms (chamber and hall) had caught fire.
The Police Commander said she tried entering the rooms to rescue the children. When she entered, she realised that she could not go further because of the intensity of the fire in the room.
She, therefore, returned and got partially burnt but by the time the fire service was able to quench the fire, the children were both burnt to death.
When the Daily Graphic visited the hospital their mother was in a stable condition.
The father of the deceased children, a police officer at Oterkporlu Police Station in the Yilo Krobo Municipality, Sgt. Daniel Apedo, was making arrangements for the bodies to be released to the family for burial.
The Administrator of the hospital, Mr Osei Owusu Bempah, described the incident as a disaster that affected not only the family but the entire hospital and every hospital worker was in a state of mourning.
All efforts to get the Kpong Fire station officer to comment on the incident proved futile as he could not be reached on his phone.
