Five-year-old girl dies in Aba Kerosene explosion, mother and another victim still in hospital

July 20, 2016

By Ijendu Iheaka

A five year old girl, Miracle Uwa, on Tuesday died in a hospital in Aba from severe bums that peeled her skin from head to toe. 

Newsmen learnt that the fire which burned Miracle was caused from kerosene explosion in her home on Monday. 

Medical personnel had fought from Monday evening till late afternoon of Tuesday when the girl died at the Holy Wounds Hospital on Faulks road, in Aba. 

Mrs Nwaoma Ndubuisi, a neighbour to Uwa family said that Miracle was beside her mother Mercy, in the kitchen where she was lighting a kerosene lamp. 

She said that when Mercy added kerosene that someone bought for them earlier from a neighbour to the lamp, it blew up in her face. 

“Mercy’s face was burnt to her chest area and to parts of her laps; Miracle, her daughter was also burnt from face down to her toes severely because she was stooping by her”, she said.

Ndubuisi said that the cry of Mercy, who is nursing a five months baby summoned their cotenants to help rescue them and to take Mercy and her daughter Miracle to the hospital. 

The father of Miracle, Mr Ihemere Uwa, a security outfit manufacturer in Ariaria market told the NAN that he received a call at about 6:00 pm on Monday to come home. 

“I was told my house was on fire but on reaching home, it has been controlled and asked my wife what happened and she said she and Miracle caught fire as she was filling a lamp with suspected adulterated kerosene. That is the much I heard”, he said. 

Mrs Joy Joseph, another mother whose ward, Gift Monday, was burnt by adulterated kerosene on Friday said that she took the girl and his brother in when they lost their mother and father. 

However, she said that because she was sick with her children, Gift, 12, was left to take care of things in the house. 

She said that on Thursday she sent Gift to buy kerosene and she did but because there was electricity, they cooked with electric stove to save money on kerosene which had become very expensive. 

“But on Friday, as the light went out and Gift was lighting the stove, it exploded and she caught fire and she was burnt”, Joy said. 

She said that they have been buying kerosene from the same seller they bought the one which exploded noting that they had not had any such explosion. 

Mrs Pleasure Moses, the mother of Joy said the Ariaria police later arrested the kerosene seller and detained him after discovering that the kerosene in his tank was adulterated. 

She also said that the police found that the man was selling a type of kerosene different from the type he was using in his lamp at home. 

Moses called on the government to stop the sale of adulterated kerosene in order to check domestic fire outbreaks in Aba and to investigate the incidences to ensure they do not recur. 

A reliable police source said that the police arrested the kerosene seller and after detaining him for a day, left him but later re-arrested him on Monday. 

According to the source, the man was re-arrested when they found that the second victim who bought kerosene a day after the first victim had been burnt also bought hers from same suspect. 

Our reporter said that an Aba-based businessman as at 5 pm Tuesday was behind the counter at the Ariaria police station because police said his filling station was suspected to be the source of the adulterated kerosene causing fire outbreaks in homes. 

The police source also said that they were not sure of the man’s complicity because nobody had come to report him to them yet he was moved behind the counter with two of his station attendants. 

However, this action contradicts police response on arrest of the key suspect because the victims said they bought the kerosene from a middleman and not a filling station. 

The Abia State Police Public Relations Officer, ACP Nta Ogbonnaya confirmed that there was a fire incident related to suspected adulterated kerosene adding that investigations were ongoing. 

Ogbonnaya however refused to tell this reporter when asked if the culprits have been arrested and what the police have been able to uncover but only said “investigations are still on”.