Fire on Wednesday night gutted down Arua market destroying merchandise worth over shillings 100 million. The fire is suspected to have started from a cooking stove left unattended too by a food vendor in the market.
Several market stalls, drug shops, stationery shops and the market offices were reduced to ash by the fire.
Isaac Okulega, an eye witnesses, says the fire that started at around 1:30am. He says that the fire started spreading slowly to other parts of the market because there was no one to put it out.
Okulega believes that the fire escalated because of the nearby petrol station where smugglers sale off their
Razak Gule, whose stationery shop was burnt, estimates to have lost over shillings 20 million. He says the fire is a disaster to his life because he has no other source of income from which he will raise capital to restart business.
He calls for investigation into the incident to establish what could have caused the fire.
Willis Mutabingwa, Arua District Police Commander says that police could not help to put out the fire because of lack of fire fighting equipment.
He says that a fire fighting truck they borrowed from Civil Aviation Authority, arrived to hours later, when the market was already gutted down.
Mutabingwa says that has launched investigations in the incident to establish what would have caused the fire.
Charles Asiki, the mayor of Arua municipality says he is shocked that their biggest source of income has been reduced to debris because of carelessness of some vendors.
