Ms Yasmin Mubarak, a trader at the famous Toi Market in Nairobi's Kibra constituency, was woken up on Saturday morning by an alarming phone call: a fire had broken out in the market.
The caller, a fellow trader, urged him to rush to the scene to save her goods.
As she made her way to the market, thousands of thoughts raced through his mind.
She had recently taken a loan from a local microfinance institution, and the news of the fire tragedy broke her heart. In 2019, she had also lost goods worth millions of shillings in a similar incident.
Rowdy youths run away from police officers after traders at Toi Market in Kibra chased away Nairobi County Governor Johnson Sakaja on August 3, 2024 over the slow response of the county fire service in putting out a fire at the market.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu| Nation Media Group
When she arrived at the market, she found other traders who owned stalls in the market sitting on the remaining ashes of their stalls. Their bales of clothes worth millions of shillings had been destroyed in the fire.
“I do not know where to start. I am a single mother of four and I have lost everything. I do not even know how to go back to my children,” Ms Mubarak told Nation.Africa.
She was among the hundreds of traders at the market who were counting losses worth millions of shillings in the fire incident.
The remains of a tomato stall at Toi market in Kibra, where a fire broke out on August 3, 2024 and burnt down a number of stalls.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu| Nation Media Group
Ms Adelite Aonga, who sat next to her received the news of the tragedy while she was away burying her mother. She has been a trader at the market since 1994 and she had built her livelihood around the business of selling clothes.
The news of the fire tragedy devastated her. She was unable to salvage any of the items she had recently stocked.
“I was away planning the funeral of my mother when I got the news. I am so heartbroken that a fire can come out of nowhere to consume all our life investments,” she said.
Ms Fatuma Bosire, a trader who sells baby clothes said: “We have not even finished settling loans that we took last year. Market leaders usually collect the names of those affected after every fire but we do not receive anything. We just go back and start taking loans to rebuild our businesses. We are on our own.”
The dawn fire, which caught the traders unawares, also claimed the lives of four people who had arrived on the scene to save their property.
Mr Kenneth Jumba, the market chairman, said the four who died were trying to save their goods when the flames overpowered them.
"They rushed to the market to save their goods but unfortunately the flames overpowered them. Traders who were nearby tried to rescue them but they could not complete the process and they perished in the incident," Mr Jumba said.
However, a group of traders interrupted the press conference to hurl insults at the market leaders, accusing them of incompetence and making a fortune out of the fire.
Traders at Toi market in Kibra after a fire burnt down their shops on 03 August 2024.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
“The governor was here last time and they promised to bring us the iron sheets but this has never been done. The incident would have been avoided if the fire department responded in time,” Ms Hellen Kasmil, a local trader said.
Mr Jomba the chairperson of the market said the locals have been involved in a land tussle with a private developer but the court awarded them victory in 2023.
“We were involved in a land tussle with a private developer but the courts ruled that the piece of land belongs to the public. We have been calling upon the county government to finish the construction of a perimeter wall and a modern market but this has not been done,” he said.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja who had arrived at the scene of the accident was pelted with stones by a group of angry traders. Mr Sakaja was later rushed to safety by his bodyguards. Police officers also fired in the air to disperse angry youth who were pelting the governor with stones.
Traders at the Toi market in Kibra sit in a half-burned stall after a fire gutted their shops on August 3, 2024.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu| Nation Media Group
In 2023, during a similar fire incident, Mr Sakaja promised to renovate the market and build a perimeter wall to protect the land from private developers. Thirteen months later, the county has yet to start the project.
Last year, Acting Chief Officer Markets Godfrey Akumali blamed land grabbers for the slow start of the project. Mr Akumali said the county government had started the process of acquiring a title deed for the piece of land before it could start the construction.
The market is prone to fires, the first of which was reported in 2014. In 2019, two fires broke out, destroying property of unknown value. In November 2021, a fire razed part of the market stalls, leaving traders with heavy losses.
