FOUR KIDS PERISH IN FIRE (Front Page)

FOUR children aged between five and nine were burnt to death when fire gutted the five-bedroom house in which they lived at Sowutuom-Nsufan, a suburb of Accra, on Monday night.
However, a Bible in the room where the kids got burnt was left intact.
The cause of the fire is not officially known, but residents allege that it was due to power surges which caused some electric bulbs to burst.
At the time of the incident, the mother of three of the children, 37-year-old Mrs Freda Brenya, whose husband lives abroad, was said to have responded to a call from her landlord at a different part of Sowutuom.
The deceased children were identified as Linette Brenya, nine; Freda Brenya, seven, and Terry Akrofi Halm, five.
The fourth child, five-year-old Eugene Osei Kwame Aidoo, was the only child of Freda’s younger sister, 30-year-old Louisa Boakye Dankwa. Little Eugene had been sent to the house to spend the night with his auntie because his mother was preparing to travel the next morning.
Thirty-four-year-old Kofi Bismark, the children’s uncle and only adult in the house at the time of the incident, is in critical condition on admission at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.
He was said to be sleeping in a different room from where the children slept and got burnt as he tried to save the children, who were sleeping in their mother’s bedroom.
The house was completely burnt and burnt household items such as furniture and electrical appliances are what are left. There were also burnt suitcases, shoes, as well as adult’s and children’s clothing and toys.
When the Daily Graphic visited the scene earlier, there was no relative of the children around and the place was quiet.
But when the family members returned from the Sowutuom Police Station about 10 a.m., the atmosphere turned into one of pain and agony as a number of women wailed uncontrollably while mentioning the names of the dead children.
The landlord, Mr George Asante Appiagyei, told the Daily Graphic at the scene of the disaster that Freda had only two months to vacate the house, since her rent advance would expire by the end of August 2011.
He said he had, therefore, invited her for discussions on whether or not she would continue to occupy the house.
Ironically, when a resident picked a Holy Bible which was burnt only at the edges and opened it, it opened at the Book of Ruth. (The Book of Ruth talks about the calamities which befell Naomi who lost all she had, including her two sons.)
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, an eyewitness said he had heard screams from the house during the night and rushed there to see Bismark in flames and standing on a veranda screaming.
He said with help from a few other residents, they managed to put out the fire which had engulfed Bismark, before they tackled the one from the rooms.
According to the eyewitness, with the help of other residents, they broke the lock of the door in which the children were sleeping, but it was too late, as the children were completely burnt.
The charred remains of the children have been deposited at the morgue of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for autopsy.