"I heard them screaming and eventually the screams stopped."These were the gut-wrenching words of Zwelakhe Moyeni hours after he lost all three of his children in a fire that swept through their home in Site B, in Khayelitsha, Cape Town during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
And he and his wife suspect that someone deliberately burned down their shack.
| 'Now my life will never be the same after this' |
He and his wife Ntombovuyo, who were in another room at the time, managed to push aside their corrugated iron ceiling and force open an escape route. But they were unable to get to their children because their room was engulfed in raging flames.
"There was no chance to get my children out. My wife was shouting to them to come to us because we could not reach them to save them."
Both parents sustained minor burns.
The couple lost all their belongings and valued possessions in the blaze.
| Firefighters have battled to extinguish a number of blazes |
The couple is convinced that someone doused their front door and roof with paraffin.
Ntombovuyo Moyeni said she had heard scratching near their front door.
Moments later flames erupted.
"My husband told me the area near the kitchen was wet. We assumed it was paraffin because I had a strong smell of paraffin.
"I don't know who would do this to us. If only one of (the children) had been spared... now my life will never be the same after this," she said and collapsed into sobs.
During the interview with the Cape Argus in a neighbouring shack, Zwelakhe Moyeni got up and left the room as he was overcome with grief and he said he was unable to bear his wife's suffering.
When he returned a while later, he said police had confiscated a funnel and a paraffin bottle which had been left nearby.
The tragedy has left the community in shock, and neighbours rallied around the couple on Tuesday.
When the Cape Argus arrived at the scene, the mother was in a neighbour's home and the father was already trying to build a new shack next to the blackened ruins of their old dwellings. Residents were helping him.
Neighbour Beauty Sotyingwa said she awoke to the smell of smoke and saw the Moyenis' home was burning.
"How could something like this happen?" she asked.
City fire chief Ian Schnetler said that paraffin was "generally the cause of fires, but that would be evident". Schnetler said the cause of the fire was registered as unknown.
The deadly blaze came a day after four-year-old Sihle Tono burned to death in his home in Samora Machel near Philippi.
The boy been left at home alone while his mother reportedly ran an errand.
Neighbours heard Tono's screams, but were unable to rescue him.
Firefighters have battled to extinguish a number of blazes that have flared up in the city in the past week. - Cape Argus
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