Africa-Press – Namibia. A FAMILY of 17 people from the Eengonyo Village were left without a roof over their heads after their house was burned to ashes in a fire allegedly started by a seven-year-old boy from a neighbouring house.
The incident occurred on 8 July this year and left the family without a home. All their documents were also destroyed by the blaze. At the time of the incident, the family were busy washing their clothes at a bore hole some distance away.
When Informanté visited the house on Thursday, they found the family busy rebuilding their home. Speaking to Informanté, Festus Thomas (22), said the youngest of the family is a two-year-old toddler and their oldest is their 82-year-old grandmother.
Thomas indicated that the little boy who caused the fire used to graze their cattle in Thomas’ family mahangu field. At the time of the incident, the child came to visit and found Thomas in the house. He left the boy in the house to go have lunch and drink oshikundu as usual and told the child to close up the house when he left.
Thomas said that upon going to the bushes to look for poles to cut, he realized that something was wrong when he saw smoke in the direction of his home. When he arrived back home the house was on fire and the little boy gone.
“When he finished eating, the child must have opened a bucket where we stored out=r matches and he must have used that to set the entire homestead on fire,” he said.
He noted that they still do not understand why the little boy set their house on fire because the child never told anybody what his actions were. “When we asked why he did it, he didn’t have any reason of doing that. He only ran away after setting the house on fire,” he said.
He noted all their belongings were burned to ashes and that family were forced to move away while they cleared up the damage. The 82-year-old Elizabeth Shaamena was left speechless and cried when officials from the office of the Ondobe Constituency Councillor brought food and clothes to help the family.
The Ondobe Constituency Councillor, Helaria Ndjuluwa said that the family also received a tent to stay in while the rebuild their homestead. “The tent will be used for a period of two months by the family, while they complete with rebuilding their house,” she said.
Ndjuluwa thanked the community for assisting the affected families in their time of need. She noted that their good gesture surely shows that Namibian are carrying people and not only in her constituency, and hope this gesture will always prevail.
