A two year 6 months old male child has died while his sister aged 10 years has suffered severe burns when a fire consumed their home in the early hours of today in Lusaka’s Chaisa Compound.
The incident happened at about 03:20 hours and Police spokesperson Esther Katongo has named the deceased as Danniel Kaputula and the one hospitalised as Alice Kaputala aged 10.
Mrs. Katongo said brief facts are that the Father of the two children identified as Royd Kaputula, a security guard left home for work on 31st December, 2018 at 16:00 hours leaving the two children in the care of their mother Barbara Phiri aged 33 of Chaisa Compound.
She said preliminary investigations have shown that Barbara Phiri, the mother of the children has a tendency of locking the children inside to go out to drink beer whenever the husband was in night shift and was not in the house at the time of the incident.
“Today around 03:20 hours, one of the neighbours was alerted by distress calls from people who were shouting “fire” and when he went out , he found people trying to put off the fire. The members of the public managed to put off the fire but discovered that Alice was severely burnt while Danniel was burnt to death on a chair”, She explained.
Mrs. Katongo said the scene was visited in which it was observed that the deceased died whilst sitted on the chair and it is suspected that he might have slept on the chair and was chocked in deep sleep.
She explained that the house is not connected to power and it is suspected that the mother could have left the candle burning when she went out.
Mrs. Katongo said the suspect has been apprehended and detained while the body of the deceased has been deposited at UTH mortaury.
Shame…..and people still insist everyone should be in a marriage and have kids…..really???
I don’t drink beer and i can’t allow my wife to drink, too bad for the kids not happy about this.