Two children of the same family in Nanchele area in chief Chilyabufu’s chiefdom in Itezhi-tezhi district in southern province have been burnt to ashes while two others have survived when fire swept through their house.
And property worth millions of kwacha has been destroyed in the inferno which started around 18:00 hours on Wednesday.
Both the police sources and the Itezhi-tezhi District Commissioner Mary Mukwiza have confirmed the incident and named the two children named as Precious Nenkombo,2, and Faustina Nenkombo 1-year- and 9 months old to ZANIS today.
And the ZANIS crew which rushed to the scene found the two bodies of the children burnt beyond recognition.
[pullquote]”I was cooking some sample in the house and later decided to pound some groundnuts at the neighboring village, they were four children but when I came back, I just found that the house was on fire and two children together with other household properties were burnt to ashes,” she explained.
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The mother of the children Gertrude Nenkombo told ZANIS in an interview that her children were burnt on Wednesday around 19:00 hours.
Nenkombo explained that she left a pot of sample boiling in the kitchen when she went to the nearby village to pound groundnuts but upon arriving back around 18 hours she found the house was on fire and two children were dead while two others survived.
She explained that at the time she left the house, there was no adult person to look after the children.
‘I was cooking some sample in the house and later decided to pound some groundnuts at the neighboring village, they were four children but when I came back, I just found that the house was on fire and two children together with other household properties were burnt to ashes,” she explained.
Meanwhile the father to the deceased children said that he was away for two weeks at Itezhi-tezhi Namwala pontoon with his second wife when the incident happened.
Further Itezhi-tezhi police who are investigating the matter have not yet established the cause of the fire which has the two infants dead.
[ ZANIS ]
But why leave a boiling pot with such young kids around without an adult to look after them. Why not pound from her place, is it that she had no pounding equipment and those who had would not let her carry the equipment to her place. Even without fire bane those kids were just to young to be left alone. May they rest in peace.
Too bad, now the future Dora Siliya and Thandiwe Banda are gone.M.T.S.R.I.P
may the infants R.I.P.i think the mother was somehow careless though