MJEJANE – A little girl burnt to death when a fire started in her home, because she couldn’t get out of the room she and her mother shared.
According to Komatipoort SAPS spokesman Const Natacia Mbuyane, the mother (21) reportedly locked the girl inside the room before going out the previous night.
The girl’s brothers, who slept in a separate room, were woken the next morning by screams. They opened their door and saw smoke coming from their mother’s bedroom. They heard their little sister scream and frantically rushed to the door to discover that it was locked with a padlock.
They tried to break it down but when they couldn’t, ran outside and went to the back of the room, where they struggled to break part of the wall to gain entry.
They tried tearing down the entire shack in an attempt to get into the room to save their sister, but by that time the fire was already out of control.
“The flames became too strong very fast, and engulfed the house before they could break enough parts of the house to save their younger sister.”
“The boys then ran away to get help, sadly leaving the young child to burn to death,” Mbuyane said.
When the police arrived on the scene they found a child’s body in the rubble of the building, burned beyond recognition. Everything else owned by the family was also destroyed.
Preliminary reports indicate that the fire started inside the mother’s room.
The mother was taken into police custody for questioning and appeared in the Tonga Magistrate’s Court yesterday on a charge of child negligence. An inquest case has been opened at Komatipoort Police Station.
The accused was remanded in police custody and is expected to appear in court again next week Tuesday.
