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Shauritanga victims remembered
2007-07-08 10:01:18
By Correspondent Adam Ihucha in Arusha
Shauritanga Secondary School in Rombo district is cuddling co-ed system as a bold step towards overcoming a decade of fire phobia nightmare, it was revealed recently when marking the 13th anniversary of the 1994 fire tragedy where 41 students lost their lives.
The chairman of Tanzania Parents Association in Kilimanjaro Region, Sammy Ngassa, told The Guardian on Sunday that his association has started to register both female and male students as a way to cast the `fire ghost` that has haunted the school for more than a decade. TAPA runs the school.
``We marked the 13th anniversary last month in a different style by embarking on building a Form Five and Six students` dormitory which we hopefully believe would be a symbol of the 1994 fire episode,`` elucidated Ngassa. Enrollment of Form One and Form Five students started this year.
On June 18th, 1994, the probably forgotten fire tragedy occurred at Shauritanga Secondary school in Kilimanjaro region, claiming lives of 41 female students within a period of a half an hour.
``We have never done anything to commemorate the tragedy`s victims despite having known that such occasion must have affected students psychologically,`` Ngassa affirmed, urging relatives of the victims, government officials, non- governmental organizations and well-wishers to join hands in the effort of commemorating the fire tragic victims.
He said it is still controversial since the government`s report of the cause of the accident as a mere `candle` was squarely rejected by the students who survived and the then Shauritanga Secondary School headmaster, Stephen Moshi. Eight years after the first fire that claimed 41 lives there was another fire accident.
Ngassa said that it was discouraging that nobody knows of the source of the two fire tragedies, adding that the incidents created fear at the back of the minds of the community residing around the school and parents who would have otherwise wished to enroll their children to learn in the school.
As a result of the persistent fear the school is virtually deserted, and majority of parents are transferring their children to other schools, saying that Shauritanga School which was once among the best secondary schools in Northern Zone back in 1990s booming with over 400 students, is in its worst state having only 300 students.
The former school headmaster, Stephen Moshi, said during the anniversary that it was not clear how many students were at the school on the material day, but according the school register, there were 82 students despite the fact that when they were physically counted it was realized that about 90 students survived.
According to reports from a few of the students who survived, the incident started some minutes after 10.00 pm when they had gone to their dormitories, explaining that building which was gutted down by the mid-night fatal inferno was partitioned into three dormitories - Gezaulole, Chamwino and Butiama.
They said that since more that half of the students were on vacation, one of the three dormitories was used as a store, where beds, mattresses and other students` belongings were stored.
The reports had it that the fire started in the Gezaulole dormitory and later spread to Chamwino, Songambele and Butiama.
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