Africa-Press – Namibia. WHAT started as an ordinary Saturday turned into horror for a family of six who lost all their worldly belongings when their shack caught fire at 8ste Laan in Windhoek.
To make matters worse, the family was forced to helplessly look on as their home burned to the ground because the informal settlement does not have nearby water points.
Siegfried Katjangua, a 43-year-old businessman and owner of the shack, said that he had just left home to sort out his meat business, when a taxi driver who knows him informed him that a house in his neighbourhood is on fire.
Upon his immediate return, he found out that the house on fire is in fact his.
According to Katjangua, no one was inside the house when it caught fire as his wife and children had also stepped out briefly to do laundry.
He said that they tried to put out the fire, but there was not enough water in the neighbourhood and the closest water point was a long distance away.
“We tried with the little water we had in the containers, but it was impossible to extinguish the fire. The fire truck took an hour to arrive and by the time it got there, we had already lost everything in the house,” said Katjangua.
Katjangua believes that the fire was started by a cigarette behind their house after leaves under a tree caught fire and the fire quickly spread due to a strong wind on the fateful afternoon.
