By Olivia Nabawanga
There has been a rampant rage of fires which have destroyed educational institutions, particularly the secondary and primary school entities.
On October 25, the unthinkable happened to Salaama School for the Blind, found in Luga village, Ntazi Parish, and Ntenjeru Kisoga Town Council, sending shockwaves throughout Uganda.
Salaama, which has a population of about 76 visually impaired students, lost 12 girls and injured six others in the fire that gutted the girl’s dormitory of about 27.
The survivors were rushed to Kisoga Mukono’s Herona Hospital for first aid before being transferred to Kiruddu Referral Hospital for further treatment in Burns ICU MUL Ward 4B.
Salaama School for the Blind was founded by the local government in April 1999, 25 kilometers away from Kampala, with the vision of bringing services near to the parents of visually impaired children, a vision that has failed to be fulfilled as the school has been in the news, not as a safe haven for peace and safety as the name suggests but rather as a scene for a hideous blazing fire.
The causes of these continuous fires are a variety, ranging from internal factors and other secondary factors that make these undesirable circumstances an inevitable reality, as explained by the acting director of the Uganda Police Directorate of Fire Prevention and Rescue Services, Hassan Kihanda.
“The deliberate setting of fire on properties (arson) is due to land wrangling, riots, competition among schools, revenge, and fraud where criminals want to destroy evidence, poor wiring and overloading of wires, negligence, and accidental fires due to smoking among students,” he said.
However, none of these explains the cause of the fire at Salaama School for the Blind, as the Deputy Head Teacher Lawrence Tumusiime believes that the fire was caused by one of the pupils, Paula Ndagire, a 12-year-old girl who bought a match box, claiming that the doctor had advised her to use it in case of nausea when asked by her friends.
The police have no say about the actual cause, even after having statements from different people and pupils.
The Chairman of Luga Village, Moses Ndawula, urged police to expedite the investigation into the cause of the fire outbreak. It is suspicious that the fire occurred while they were expecting the princess Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise to visit the school.
They tried reaching out to some of the survivors of the fire, but recounting these events was hard work.
Annet Namawejje, a daughter of a single mother, Cissy Nalweyiso is one of the few survivors of these horrific fires that left 12 dead. Her condition is believed to be at its worst, as she and her mother had to stay in the intensive care unit (ICU) for a week.
Others weren’t privileged to live to see another day; among them is Jennifer Nassozi’s daughter, Veronica Nassali.
The mother is still questioning her death and how it happened because she knew her daughter as an intelligent person who could walk herself in and out of the dormitory.
People have assigned the blame to the Police and Fire Departments, which have been heavily criticized for providing subpar services and moving at a snail’s pace in response to emergencies.
The Police Fire Department, on the other hand, would have none of this talk and see the situation differently, blaming the people’s passiveness and lack of immediacy in case of a fire outbreak.
“People call to test our performance and to hear the sirens when there is no fire yet, but when it breaks out, no one calls until someone from a far area sees the large frames and informs them, and this is when the fire is on its free-burning stage.” Kihanda lamented.
The question undoubtedly remains about whether the government fire brigade is efficient in its efforts to provide services to its people.
Police reports revealed that 17 of the 40 schools that caught fire across the country between January 5 and June 27, 2022, were burned deliberately.
Four of the fire incidents occurred out of negligence, four were accidental, and the police have yet to establish the causes of the fire in the remaining 15 cases.
A recent report for 2020–2021 by the Auditor General issued on February 15, 2022, revealed that over 111 districts out of the current 146 don’t have police or fire stations.
The whole area is believed to have 45 fire stations, of which 11 are situated within Kampala district, and Mukono as a whole district has one station and one fire truck to help the people in case of fire outbreaks.
Due to a lack of enough trained investigators and equipment, a total of 3,179 fires in the last 3 years haven’t been investigated to assess the cause and the damage.
The overarching cause is a lack of fire extinguishers and security in government schools, particularly Salaama, which is also a concerning reality.
The school had no fire extinguishers, which made it even more impossible for the people to put out the fires and prevent the children from turning into ashes. By the time the fire department reached the school at around 3 a.m., the damage was beyond control. A teacher of P3, P6, and P7 and also an acting nurse at the school, Anna Teopista Kedi, explained.
The Deputy Head Teacher goes on to explain how they have no security to protect the school and must hire village boys with pangas to protect them, despite the fact that they do not have enough money to pay their monthly salaries.
The lack of these elements beyond doubt shows the inefficiency and loopholes within the public service sector.
A survey carried out by the School Health Department has shown that 5% of 150 schools have fire extinguishers, and even the few that do, very few know how to use these fire extinguishers.
The questions raised by this rather unusual spectacle continue to ring loudly in the minds of many, and this has generated many talking points in the social world regarding the effectiveness of government parastatals, most notably the fire department, in performing their duties.
Others attribute those spectacles to the general lack of not only having fire extinguishers but also modules on how to operate them within government schools, particularly Salaama School for the Blind.
If these are considered, students will most likely have a safer space in the social world.
If these are looked onto, probably, most probably, pupils shall have safer space within the social world.
The story is published by The Standard sponsored by Media Challenge Initiative (MCI) and DW Akademie.
