Mother recalls siblings’ final moments

SRI AMAN: Help me!

Those were the last words Jamilah Tuah heard her five-yearold son Zulkarnain Ajizul shout as a fire gutted the family’s wooden house in Kampung Hilir Lingga on Tuesday.

Zulkarnain and his brother Zulfadli, 2, perished in the incident while their eight-year- old sister and mother were able to escape unharmed.

“I was with my three children who were sleeping in the bedroom. I went to the washroom and did not know that my two sons had woken up and gone into their grandfather’s bedroom,” the 26year- old recounted when met at her relative’s house here in the aftermath of the blaze.

“When I came back from the washroom, I saw thick smoke billowing from the grandfather’s room and heard them crying inside. I couldn’t see anything because the smoke was so thick.

“I pleaded with them to come out but to no avail. The fire had already spread everywhere and I was only able to grab my daughter and carried her to safety.”

Jamilah said she was informed by firefighters that Zulkarnain’s body was found on top of Zulfadli’s, indicating he had tried to shield his younger sibling from the flames.

Their father, Ajizul Alli, was silent throughout the interview and merely stared at his mobile phone of a portrait of the family taken during Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

Meanwhile, the boys’ grandfather Alli Sanusi, 66, said he was fishing at a river with Ajizul when he saw the thick smoke from afar.

Feeling uneasy, the pair headed back to the jetty where several villagers were already waiting to inform them that their house had caught fire.

“My only concern was the children. We rushed back as fast as we could but when we arrived, the villagers told us that the boys were trapped inside and had died. My heart broke when I heard that,” he said softly.

He revealed that prior to going fishing, he was playing with his grandsons while waiting for Jamilah to come back from fetching her daughter from school.

The remains of the two boys were sent to Sri Aman Hospital for a post-mortem, after which they will be buried in Lingga.