Wachuuzi kama elfu kumi katika soko kuu la Owino mjini Kampala, wamepoteza mali zao zilizoteketea kwenye moto uliotokea Jumapili alfajiri.

Hii ni mara ya pili moto kutokea hapo katika kipindi cha miaka miwili.

Polisi walisema wanachunguza tukio hilo.
Property worth billions of shillings is estimated to have been lost when the Kampala downtown Nakivubo park-yard market, part of the popular Owino market, also known as St Balikudembe Market, went up in flames on Sunday night.
This is the second time that the market with an estimated 25,000 traders, largely women, is being ravaged by fire in two years. The cause of the fire is not yet known. But the Division Police Commander Old Kampala Siraj Bakareke who rushed to the scene moments after the fire started, said the fire started from a stall near the gate to the market on Swaminarayan Road adjacent to the New Park and quickly spread to the rest of the market.
“We are investigating the cause of the fire. It started between midnight and 1.00pm but climaxed between 1:30am-2:00am,” he said in an interview. No injuries were reported save for traders who fainted upon seeing the ashes that had been their merchandise. It is understood that most of the traders are repaying loans they had got from banks to recapitalize their businesses following an earlier fire that gutted the market in February 2009.
Without making any specific reference, the traders in groups of three to five, kept on lamenting and cursing whoever could have been behind the fire. “This is an indirect way of telling us to go back to village. I think even those who went back to the village after the first fire are now better off than us. Now even the transport to take someone to the village has been destroyed here (in the fire),” said Rajab Nsubuga, who had three stalls of secondhand shoes razed.
“It is true that God cares about us all the time, but this time I think He did not. I do not know what type of death to recommend for whoever did this. I cannot imagine what that person is feeling at home right now,” lamented Faridah Nassolo, a food vendor who could not locate in the chaos her workstation.
All the merchandise in the market was destroyed save for probably less than hundreds of traders’ property which was at the entrances to the market. All the stalls and stores were reduced to ashes making this probably the biggest fire  the country has ever suffered.