Fire guts 25 kiosks at Cyanika border

KISORO. Property worth millions of shillings was on Monday destroyed after fire gutted about 25 kiosks full of merchandise at Cyanika, a Ugandan border town with Rwanda.

The chairman of traders at Cyanika, Mr Gershom Barore, said that the fire started at around 11am and by the time the police fire brigade reached at the scene, almost all the 25 wooden kiosks were already burnt.

Mr Barore said that this is the third time the wooden kiosks are being burnt down, the first one being in February 2012 and second one in January 2018. He said that government should support the local traders to build permanent structures which cannot be easily destroyed by fire.

“Those operating food centers in such wooden kiosks have always been the cause of this kind of fire and during our executive meeting that shall soon be convened, we shall ban people from using wooden kiosks as food centers now that we have known that they are the main cause of such fires. They must start operating in permanent houses from today,” Mr Barore said.

The Kisoro District LCV chairman, Mr Abel Bizimana, said that the fire incident at Cyanika is unfortunate because stores of food items such as beans, posho and general merchandise were completely destroyed.

He promised to report to president Museveni so that the people that lost their properties can be compensated since some of them were using bank loans to operate the destroyed business.

One of the affected traders, Mr Denis Hakizimana, said that he recently acquired a bank loan to boost his business of selling general merchandise that was completely destroyed by fire. He appeals to government for help.

The Kisoro District Police Commander, Mr Charles Okoto, said that they have started investigating the cause of the fire.