Two people have been confirmed dead in a house fire which broke out in one of the apartments in Masaka City.

Police on Saturday identified the deceased as Bushirah Zaina Baguwemu, 33 and her five-year-old son, Muhammad Magezi Junior.

The incident occurred at 6:46 am Saturday in a four-storied building along Horbert Street, Bata Cell in Masaka City.

According to Mr Innocent Mubangiz, the Masaka District Criminal Intelligence Officer, the police fire brigade team immediately responded to the incident but arrived when the victims were already dead. Property inside the affected rooms were all burnt to ashes.

“By the time our firefighting team responded to put out the fire, two people were already dead and their bodies have been taken to Masaka Regional Referral Hospital for mortuary for postmortem and investigations into the cause of the inferno is underway,” he said.

By the time of the fire, Mr Mubangizi said there were four people in the apartment, two of whom- Baguwemu’s husband, Mr Muhammad Magezi Senior and their 14-year old daughter- survived.

Mr Magezi survived with injuries while their daughter was unhurt.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that the wife or husband could have intentionally started the fire after developing misunderstanding.

Southern Regional Police Spokesperson, Mr Muhammad Nsubuga, however, said they had asked a fire expert from Umeme, the national power distributor, to establish whether the inferno was as a result of an electric short- circuit before they can make any conclusions.

The victims’ neighbor, Ms Sarah Nalugo said they had been hearing noise from the victim’s apartment at around 6am when Magezi Junior was calling his mother before they saw smoke coming emanating from the windows.

“We heard the child crying and when we got out, we saw smoke and we also started running away after sensing that the whole building could catch fire,” she said.

She revealed that Ms Baguwemu returned last December from Saudi Arabia where she was working and that she had just joined the husband in their rented apartment.

“The fire brigade took about an hour to arrive and had they responded on time, may be they could have saved their lives,” she added.

This is the third fire incident to be recorded on the same street in just one year.

On February 23 last year, fire gutted two shops on Herbert Street, destroying property worth millions of shillings. On February 3 this year, one person only identified Musirwa, 25, died in a fire that gutted a building adjacent to Buddu Guest house along the same street .The burnt building was housing over 20 tenants and fire destroyed four of the rented rooms. The fire also destroyed household items worth millions of money. In this particular incident, the fire reportedly started from an unattended charcoal stove in one of the rooms.