mbulelo smpofu
News Editor
A mysterious fire recently destroyed 12 huts across five homesteads belonging to the same family in Chief Mawarire’s area in Mwenezi District, leaving the occupants in dire need of help.
The shocking incident happened at Chimbudzi Village affecting the Chimbudzi family.
As a result, some family members are now without shelter and vital supplies including food, clothing and other belongings. They were lost to the enigmatic flames, complicating their situation especially since it is now the rainy season.
In an interview with Sunday News, Mr Mike Chimbudzi described the panic, anxiety, and stress that gripped both the affected family and the surrounding villagers, as the source of the fire remains a mystery.
“It was not raining for someone to have suspected lightning, and neither was there anyone in the house playing around the fire.”
Mr Chimbudzi recounted the fateful day, stating, “It was around 11am when the fire started at my sister Judith Chimbudzi’s homestead. She was outside with her daughter-in-law who had just arrived from collecting money that had been sent by her husband and buying groceries when the fire started from the kitchen hut.”
“The fire was so raging that they never tried to douse it. It was like someone had poured petrol and lit the roof. And just as they watched, shocked and in disbelief, another hut caught fire destroying everything inside,” he said.
On that tragic Sunday morning, two of the three huts at the homestead were consumed by flames, leaving only one unaffected.
A mere five days later, the fire returned to finish off the last remaining hut, rendering the family homeless with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.
“On that Friday they went to the homestead of Judith’s mother to sleep since they had nowhere to put up. When they woke up on Saturday, the hut in which they had slept the previous night started burning just as they were moving back to their homestead,” recounted Mr Chimbudzi.
Fearing that the fire might continue to target Judith and her daughter-in-law, other villagers declined to offer them shelter.
Overwhelmed with uneasiness, they also chose not to stay in another hut offered by their mother, who is in her late 70s. Instead, they opted to sleep outside, and on Sunday morning, the destruction resumed, as if to confirm their status as innocent victims of unfortunate circumstances.
In the disturbing turn of events, four huts at Judith’s mother’s homestead caught fire in rapid succession, destroying everything within them.
“No one dared to go in any of the huts to salvage the property,” Mr Chimbudzi noted.
“People were afraid that the fire might start when one is inside. And the fire would destroy not just the grass thatch but the poles on which the thatch rests.”
The nightmarish incident continued as a fire blazed through Mike’s elder brother’s homestead, destroying three huts before moving on to his younger brother’s homestead, where two more huts were reduced to shells.
“The homesteads are not in the same yard for one to suggest that the fire was easily passed from one hut to another; neither are the huts themselves. They are an impossible distance away from that,” he said.
The Sunday inferno brought the total destruction to 12 huts, and in a strange twist, the fire returned on Monday morning to the original homestead, only to raze the perimeter hedge made of dry tree branches and thorns.
“My sister and her daughter-in-law now stay at a rented house at the shops, while at my mother’s homestead, only one asbestos-roofed house remained,” Mr Chimbudzi explained.
“Five homesteads need foodstuffs while my sister and her daughter-in-law were left with the clothes they were putting on. Uniforms for school children were also destroyed, and since we are in the rainy season, reconstruction of the huts is a challenge and there is no grass for thatching.”
He made a heartfelt appeal for assistance, stating that they were only offered a bag of maize from the Department of Social Welfare, which he described as insufficient for the disaster-stricken family.
Chief Mawarire confirmed the incident and expressed shock at the bizarre events.
“We are dumbfounded as a community. We have never seen anything like that. We are doing everything we can as a community and as leadership to assist,” he said.
The chief mentioned that they were reaching out to the District Development Co-ordinator’s office, which oversees the Civil Protection Unit (CPU) in the district, to aid the Chimbudzi family.
daniel chigunwe
