Hiiraan Online
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
MOGADISHU (HOL) – Somali government has launched an investigation into two fire incidents at two major hospitals in the Somali capital on Saturday night, looking at the possibility that it might have been an arson case.
The first fire razed the operating theater of the Benadir maternal hospital before it spread into the medicine storeroom, few minutes before another fire also erupted in the nearby Medina hospital, engulfing the operating theater and a medicine storeroom with 30 tons
stockpiles of medicine in it.
“Questions are being raised on the coincidence of the two fire incidents – investigations are underway to determine the exact reasons behind it.” Yusuf Hussein Jimale, Mogadishu mayor told reporters after a visit he paid to the two hospitals.
The fire at the Benadir hospital was contained about 15 minutes later after firefighters and residents responded, an action authorities said prevented the inferno from spreading into other parts of the premise.
However, Dr. Mohamed Yusuf, the director of Medina hospital said that the health center had halted surgery operations for an indefinite period as result of the mysterious fire which entirely gutted the hospital’s operating theater.
In the meantime, hospital workers have initially speculated that electrical discharges were behind the fires before authorities raised suspicions of a possible arson attacks.
No arrested have so far been made in relation to the two fire incidents with investigators continued working to determine the exact causes of the fires on the two critical hospitals that despite working under tough conditions remained fully operational over half a century.