The mayor of Juba city, Michael Lado, has advised traders to desist from sleeping in their shops and urged those affected by Monday night’s massive fire in the customs market to relocate to the Jebel and Gudele markets which have empty shops.
A massive fire destroyed a section of the customs market in the Nyakuron suburb of Juba City razing 62 shops and 102 kiosks on Monday night.
“It is a great loss to all of us and as the mayor of JCC, I sympathize. I also want to tell the traders to stop living in the markets and sleeping in the shops because some of the fires are started by people who sleep in their shops.” Mayor Lado advised. “I want to tell the traders to rent concrete buildings so that they can minimize losses from fire outbreaks and theft. There are markets like Jebel which are dormant and some of the affected traders can get space there. There are empty shops there.”
He ordered the Munuki Payam administration to ensure that the Gudele central market is operational.
The executive director of the Munuki area, Nelson Yanga, said that the initial report his office received indicated that about 62 shops and 102 c kiosks were completely burned.
“62 shops and 102 kiosks were completely burned. 8 of them were broken when the owners tried to rescue the goods but some of the goods which were rescued were stolen by criminals,” Yanga said. “We are saddened by the losses. This market needs proper organization.”
He added: “The land belongs to the University of Juba but we have a problem of access roads within the market. The number of traders here is big and the market cannot accommodate all of them. So this matter has to be taken into consideration.”
For his part, Martin Juma, speaking on behalf of the affected traders, called on the city council to provide fire engines in the three administrative divisions of the city to contain such fire.
“It would be good if the fire brigade could be deployed in the 3 areas. They would have helped contain the fire of yesterday (Monday),” Juma said. “The losses would not have been this huge. I want to request the mayor’s office to look into this. We are approaching the festive season and traders stocked up a lot of goods which they have now lost.”
Sakira Moses, a police attaché at the Ugandan embassy in Juba, sympathized with the traders who lost their goods to the fire and said investigations must be made so that a recurrence can be avoided.
“We are here on behalf of the (Ugandan) Embassy to come and express our sympathies to the people in this market for the loss of the properties. This market has both Ugandans and South Sudanese, hence the concern,” Sakira said. “It is good that the police saved the other parts of the market even if the damage is vast.”
He added: “It is good that we have seen detectives and other people who are investigating the matter because it is important to know the cause so that in future we know the preventive measures that we have to take.”