Kakata, Margibi County – Last Monday morning, fire outbreak total destroyed the three-bedroom apartment of Amos Fanga, destroying all his belongings and rendering him homeless.
Fanga, an associate magistrate at the Kakata city court, lived in the Fourteen Road community where the incident occurred.
The three bedroom apartment of Amos Fanga in the Fourteen Road Community, Kakata City left in ashes on Monday, November 13, 2017, due to the untraceable fire incident
According to an eyewitness, Vivian Bonard, the fire started in one of the rooms about 11:00 AM when all the occupants of the building were either at work or school.
Bonard said when she began smelling the burnt scent of clothes; she was concerned, glanced into the house and noticed fire had erupted in bedrooms.
“When I saw the fire, I started shouting for people to come and help and that’s how we burst the door but could not retrieve anything because of the intensity of the fire,” she said.
Judge Fanga later told reporters he was “short of words” and could not explain his ordeal. Shock after losing everything in the apartment including some of his essential documents.
“The only thing I am left with was the clothes I wore from the house to work, I am confused and don’t know where to start from,” he said.
The Liberia National Police and the Liberia National Fire Service in the county have launched an investigation but there has been no probable cause of the incident.
Kakata city has experienced at least two major unexplained fire incidents that caused the destruction of properties worth thousands of United States dollars.
In April this year, a four-bedroom building housing the offices of a local Christian health charity group, Healthy Women Healthy Liberia was gutted by fire, leaving several assorted items and the building in ashes.
Also, in October 2016, Radio Kakata FM 104.6 MHz, one of the nine community radio stations operating in Margibi County, was also destroyed including all its studio equipment.
The police are still unable to establish any trace of these major fire incidents that many in the county suspect to be “arsons attacks”.
Alpha Daffae Senkpeni is a multi-media journalist and fact checker with over 18 years’ experience. Senkpeni is the Director and Senior Editor of Local Voices Liberia (LVL) – a network that operates Liberia’s major independent fact checking desk. LVL has implemented several media development projects funded by USAID and the European Union. Since 2021, he has led the organization’s implementation of fact checking projects including fact checking workshops for journalists, media literacy programs, and community forums – all geared toward countering disinformation and expanding the culture of fact checking.
Senkpeni holds a law degree from the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law and a BSc in Mass Communications from the University of Liberia. He’s also an alumnus of the Radio Netherlands Training Center (RNTC) with a certificate in Digital Content to Counter Disinformation. He has also attended several fact checking trainings.
