Newlywed couple dies in Arua fuel inferno

A newlywed couple has died in a fuel inferno in Arua city, northern Uganda.

Lillian Anguezaru Fungaro, 20, and her husband Emmanuel Adima, 30, got married just two weeks ago. Francis Abiti, a neighbour to the deceased couple told URN that they were woken up by the screams of help by the couple on Tuesday at around 11 pm. Abiti alleges that Adima has been a renowned dealer of smuggled fuel from DR Congo, a claim URN could not independently verify.

According to police, Anguezaru was instantly burnt to death while Adima who managed to run out of the house after sustaining severe burns all over his body succumbed to injuries yesterday Wednesday at Arua regional referral hospital.

Josephine Angucia, police spokesperson for the West Nile region explains that although the regional fire brigade team rushed to the scene after getting the information at around 11:43 pm, they found Anguezaru already burnt beyond recognition. She says that the fire brigade crew managed to extinguish the fire and saved the neighbouring buildings.

Preliminary police investigations attribute the cause of the fire to lighting of a matchbox within the house which was already saturated with fumes of petrol.

Cases of petrol inferno are common in the West Nile region, something the local authorities attribute to the rampant smuggling of fuel from across the South Sudan and DRC border which is facilitated by the porous illegal entry points.

In August last year, Agnes Omveku and her two-year-old son Emmanuel Trinity were burnt to death in a petrol inferno at her shop in Ribini A cell in Maracha Town Council, Maracha district. Similarly, in September 2021, Kassim Ajo, a South Sudanese national perished in an inferno in Koboko district while attempting to save his fuel from a grass-thatched house that had caught fire in Triangle Cell Koboko North Division, Koboko municipality.