Dad couldn’t save 1yr old

“DADDY!” was the last word Patrik Mepio heard from her one-year-old daughter Jennita who was trapped in a blaze that razed a house in Nipa-Kutubu’s Kware village last Monday.
Mepio tried to dash into the house through the back door to save Jennita but was pushed by the raging flames that burnt his back.
Jennita perished in the fire.
Mepio said: “This will always be a haunting nightmare for me.
“The pain of an innocent child who is yet to explore the world died and I am still alive.
“I remember Jennita who walked, talked and explored the world around her with fascinating curiosity.”
Mepio is a district livestock officer and worked for 21 years.
He has four wives and 17 children.
“I suspect the fire was caused by solar panels that might have been wrongly wired,” he said.
“The fire started in my room first and then spread to the living room.
“Early in the morning, my wives went out to the garden leaving me with Jennita.
“I was busy in the kitchen outside the main house.
“After few minutes, at 9.30am when I looked outside, the house was already on fire.
“I rushed to the back door to try to enter the house to save Jennita but the flames were too strong.
“I heard her last word, ‘daddy’.
“I lost her, the double-storey house and other important properties worth more than K150,000.”
Mepio said he was admitted at the Nipa District Hospital the same day and received medical treatment and returned to his village the next day.
Relative Wilfred Kome said Mepio’s relatives from the Wil tribe gathered to comfort the family. He said after the house was burnt down, they searched through the debris and found Jennita’s remains.
“A funeral service was organised near the burnt house and people contributed clothes, food and a few gave some cash for them to rebuild their lives. “Mepio is a hardworking agriculture and livestock officer and the Nipa-Kutubu development authority and provincial government should assist his family,” he said. He appealed to the district and provincial disaster coordination teams to visit the site.