Police believe Vancouver fire was deliberately set
Petti Fong
Globe and Mail
__________
Vancouver (Canada):
It had been a perfect Mother's Day, Adela Etibako told her friend by phone on Sunday night.
Ms. Etibako, a Congolese-born mother of five, had gone with her family to church, the Calvary Worship Centre, and heard a sermon about motherhood.
The younger children finished off the day visiting and playing with their friends outside in the family's east Vancouver neighbourhood.
But when a fire roared through their three-bedroom townhouse as they slept, leaving one adult and four children dead, there was no stopping the flames.
Police yesterday began a homicide investigation after determining that the fire that started in the Etibakos' unit just before 4 a.m. was deliberately set.
A young man, whom friends identified as one of Ms. Etibako's sons, is in hospital with serious burns after making it out of the apartment and running to a nearby restaurant for help.
"The person is suffering from fairly extensive burns," Vancouver Police Constable Tim Fanning said. "We have our major crime section investigating this."
Autopsies on the five bodies will be completed this week. It's unclear how many of the children inside the house were Ms. Etibako's. The police say they will not know until later who the victims were in the townhouse.
Friends of the family said two of the sons survived, but the youngest son died, along with two daughters and the mother.
Family friends identified the children in the family as Ornella, 18, his two younger brothers Bolingo, 16, and Stephane, 8, and two girls, Edita, who was to turn 15 this week, and Benedicta, 10.
Captain Rob Jones-Cook of the Vancouver fire department said a flammable liquid was used to start the fire, which began on the ground level and raced upward, scorching the rooftop and charring the side of the three-level building.
Because the fire was contained to just one unit, investigators believe it was deliberately set.
The townhouse unit is part of a three-block stretch of social housing. Nearly 700 seniors and low-income families live in the 230 housing units in the neighbourhood. Thunderbird Elementary, a school around the corner from the fire scene, was closed for the day.
Ms. Etibako, a single mother who moved from Congo to Canada about eight years ago, worked part-time as a cleaner.
Her friend, Ermany Lokombo, said she talked to Ms. Etibako on Sunday night and there was no indication that the family had any fears or had been threatened.
May 16, 2006
Petti Fong
Globe and Mail
__________
Vancouver (Canada):
It had been a perfect Mother's Day, Adela Etibako told her friend by phone on Sunday night.
Ms. Etibako, a Congolese-born mother of five, had gone with her family to church, the Calvary Worship Centre, and heard a sermon about motherhood.
The younger children finished off the day visiting and playing with their friends outside in the family's east Vancouver neighbourhood.
But when a fire roared through their three-bedroom townhouse as they slept, leaving one adult and four children dead, there was no stopping the flames.
Police yesterday began a homicide investigation after determining that the fire that started in the Etibakos' unit just before 4 a.m. was deliberately set.
A young man, whom friends identified as one of Ms. Etibako's sons, is in hospital with serious burns after making it out of the apartment and running to a nearby restaurant for help.
"The person is suffering from fairly extensive burns," Vancouver Police Constable Tim Fanning said. "We have our major crime section investigating this."
Autopsies on the five bodies will be completed this week. It's unclear how many of the children inside the house were Ms. Etibako's. The police say they will not know until later who the victims were in the townhouse.
Friends of the family said two of the sons survived, but the youngest son died, along with two daughters and the mother.
Family friends identified the children in the family as Ornella, 18, his two younger brothers Bolingo, 16, and Stephane, 8, and two girls, Edita, who was to turn 15 this week, and Benedicta, 10.
Captain Rob Jones-Cook of the Vancouver fire department said a flammable liquid was used to start the fire, which began on the ground level and raced upward, scorching the rooftop and charring the side of the three-level building.
Because the fire was contained to just one unit, investigators believe it was deliberately set.
The townhouse unit is part of a three-block stretch of social housing. Nearly 700 seniors and low-income families live in the 230 housing units in the neighbourhood. Thunderbird Elementary, a school around the corner from the fire scene, was closed for the day.
Ms. Etibako, a single mother who moved from Congo to Canada about eight years ago, worked part-time as a cleaner.
Her friend, Ermany Lokombo, said she talked to Ms. Etibako on Sunday night and there was no indication that the family had any fears or had been threatened.
May 16, 2006
