By Desire Emmanuel
A man in Ghana took anger to a deadly level as he locked his wife and six children inside the bedroom in their apartment, set the building ablaze and went ahead to hang himself on a tree.
According to Daily Graphic of Ghana, a newspaper in the country, the incident occurred on Saturday, November 1, at Akyempim in the Upper Denkyira East municipality of the Central Region of the country.
The newspaper quoted the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) as saying those that were set ablaze in the bedroom included his wife, eldest daughter and five other children aged between one year and 15 years.
Preliminary investigations carried out by the GNFS indicated that the man started the fire in one of the bedrooms where six persons slept after he locked the door from the outside.
After carrying out the ignoble act, he ran to a bush not far from the house where he committed suicide by hanging on a tree. Police later discovered his body there.
A statement issued by the Central Regional Public Relations Officer of the GNFS, Abdul Wasiu Hudu, disclosed that the Dunkwa-On-Offin fire station received a distress call at 1:04 a.m on Saturday and dispatched a team to the scene.
He said firefighters arrived at 1:20 a.m. to find one of the bedrooms of the four-bedroom house, numbered AA/5259/7534 engulfed in flames and padlocked from the outside.
Despite their response, he said the seven trapped occupants could not be rescued by the firefighters.
“The firefighters managed to contain the blaze by 1:32 a.m., preventing it from spreading to the other rooms.
“The charred bodies of the victims were later handed over to the police at Atekyim for further investigation,” the image-maker added.
