Fire destroys many houses, properties in A/Ibom

Afire on Friday in Iwoukpom, Ibeno Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State has destroyed an estimated 200 houses and rendered over 4, 500 people homeless.

Though no life was lost, properties worth millions of naira were also destroyed during the fire which mostly affected the Yoruba fishing settlement in the community.

An eyewitness, Mrs. Funke Awolabi said the fire started at exactly 12:30am and destroyed all the fishes, houses, outboard engines and other valuables, including an undisclosed sum of money owned by residents of the fishing settlement.

“The fire started at exactly 12:30am, destroying all the houses in the fishing settlement. As I am talking now we don’t have clothes to wear even where to stay. All of us are homeless,” she said.

One of the victims, Mrs. Victoria Udoh, who described the situation as unfortunate said she was at a night vigil when her phone rang and her friend told her that her house had been completely burnt down.

Udoh, a mother of three children lamented through tears that she did not pick anything out of the house, saying “the entire building was completely razed and I could not pick a pin in the house.”

Vice Chairman of Ibeno Local Government Area, Mr Sunday Isokobo, who said the incidence was a serious disaster, explained that the inferno was so serious that nobody could go near the fire.

He mentioned that over 200 wooden houses, many make-shift huts and more than 50 block houses, many outboard engines owned by fishermen and fishes worth several millions of naira were completely burnt.

Leader of the Yoruba community and Special Adviser to the Chairman of Ibeno on Non-Indigenes, Mr Foli Ogungbemi, said the entire area had Yoruba settlers living there.