A 37-year-old pregnant woman and her two sons have been burnt to death during a fire outbreak at Ohwim in the Bantama sub-metro in Kumasi.
Philomena Osei and her nine and seven years old children could not escape the ravaging fire when it started around 11.30 pm on Monday.
They were said to have been trapped in their three-bedroom apartment, but one of the siblings, a 14-year-old, who was sleeping in a separate room, escaped unhurt.
The charred bodies of the deceased have been conveyed by the police to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital morgue for preservation.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer (ACFO) Henry Giwah, Ashanti Regional Commander of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), confirmed the incident to the Ghanaian Times, here, yesterday, but could not give further details about the fire.
A neighbour and eyewitness, Justina Owusuaa, said she heard the woman shouting for help, and “By the time I stepped out, I realised the entire building has been engulfed by the fire”.
She said, “together with other neighbours, we called the Ghana National Fire Service but before they arrived, the children and their mother had been burnt to death.”
This has come barely two weeks after fire swept through a plastic waste recycling factory at Kronum-Cement-Mu, in the Afigya Kwabre South District, in the Ashanti region, destroying machines and items running into thousands of Ghana Cedis on Saturday.
Recently, five apartments on top of the factory building were badly destroyed, but other five, very close to it, were partially burnt by the fire.
An 18-year-old boy was burnt to death as he was said to have been trapped in an attempt to use an extinguisher to fight the blazing fire in his father’s apartment.
His charred remains were discovered after a fierce fight by the fire personnel.
FROM KINGSLEY E.HOPE, KUMASI
