Father of child killed in Masaka school fire questions incident reports

Sam Njuba, the father of 5-year-old Austin Kisomose, who died in the Kasaana Junior School dorm fire on Monday, has pinned the school administrators “for failing to utter out what exactly happened to their children.”

Njuba’s son was one of the seven youngsters killed in the blaze that also left three other children injured.

Police initially said the fire was caused by a short circuit as matron Christine Adong charged her phone.

But at the burial of his son at Kikerere Village, Bukulula Sub-County in Kalungu District, Njuba said “there are many unanswered questions in his head regarding how their children died.”

“Where was the matron at the time of the fire outbreak? How come she never got any injuries and if she managed to escape, why didn’t she save some children? The school guard sits near the fire-gutted dormitory, where was he at that time?” he wondered.

On Tuesday, school administrators told visiting officials from the Ministry of Education and Sports that the matron was outside at the time of the fire, adding that she was in hospital after fainting but not due to fire injuries as earlier communicated by police.

Addressing hundreds of mourners, Njuba called for a detailed accurate report as he denounced prolonged silence of the school authorities in the aftermath of the inferno.

Meanwhile, he also accused the school of neglecting parents nursing fire victims at both Masaka Regional Referral Hospital and Kiruddu Hospital where is son died from.

Njuba said he never received any calls from school administrators but claimed that he received a call that asked him not to take his child’s postmortem report serious.

“Why did they seem more fretful than we parents? Why were they not picking our calls? They called us at 7am yet the incident happened in the night. How come they never told us of the incident immediately?” Njuba asked.

Police on Wednesday said they were holding at least four Kasaana Junior School staff after receiving what they described as conflicting information.

Southern regional police spokesperson Jamada Wandera revealed that detectives have since recorded statements from school head teacher Joseph Ssenkasi, dormitory in charge Nicolas Akandwanaho, night watchman Gozanga Ssenyonga and teacher Daphine Nakabito.

“It is true we are holding some of the staff members. We summoned them to record statements about what happened and we will release them as soon as detectives are through with their work,” Wandera said on Wednesday.  

“We promise to produce a genuine report about that inferno,” he emphasized.   

Final conversation with son

Njuba told mourners that he last spoke to his son on phone on Sunday. The deceased asked his father to send him Shs20,000 for a kid’s party which was organized by the school.

“His mother gave him a phone to speak but he did not want to talk to me. He sounded weird. I asked his mum what had happened to him and she told me he was not in a good mood,” Njuba recalls.

According to Njuba, Kisomose wanted to be a doctor “to treats his sick grandmother.”

Still on Wednesday, Kasaana Junior School board member Ronald Lumu highlighted to mourners that the school tried its best save lives of the minors.

“Everyone can witness the work we did at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital before our learners were transferred to Kiruddu. For instance, we made sure that we filled ambulances with fuel,” he noted.