Five carpentry shops in Juba’s Gudele suburb were burned down yesterday, after a fire gutted the premises, destroying properties worth millions of South Sudanese pounds.

According to one of the owners of the shops, the fire broke out in the early hours of the morning on Sunday.

Properties destroyed include timber, doors and frames, sets of chairs, cabinets, and machines of woodwork among others.

The cause of the fire has not yet been established.

Eye Radio caught up with some of the owners of the workshops and this is what one of the workshops had to say:

“The person who was sleeping here, he came and told us to help him, and from there, people who were in the house came out with hammers and broke the doors and save some materials.”

He went on and said that… “At around 4 in the morning, we saw the fire burning shops but we don’t know the reason. We got a water tanker and poured water on the fire.”

Gabriel Juma, who witnessed the incident has this to say:

“I  work here in this workshop, it is a big loss to us and we don’t really know how to evaluate it. The cause of the fire was said that it started from the other shop next to us, the fire burns all these five shops.”

Another eyewitness who declined to be identified said that the loss is huge.

“The lost is very big, one machine is approximately six hundred thousand that is for one machine, and we have in this workshop alone four machines and the other workshops, the third also have four machines and the last workshop also have three machines.”

According to owners of the shops, the cause of the fire is not known.

via Eye Radio

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