A one-year-old child was severely burnt on Sunday morning in Juja after his mother locked him in a house with a burning jiko.
The kid sustained burns when his clothes caught a fire that started from the charcoal stove his mother Julia Muthoni had left in the house before going to church.
Neighbours said they heard the child’s cries and thought they were normal distress calls of waking up and missing his mother. They later discovered that the infant was in fact wincing in pain.
They tried opening the door in vain before the plot caretaker suggested that they rip it open. By then, the boy was on fire.
“His clothes had burnt almost completely. But we rescued him before his mother came,” explained John Muthuri, the caretaker.
By the time the mother arrived, residents were on their way to a nearby hospital where the toddler was later admitted.
The area ward representative, Peter Muiruri, offered to take care of the boy’s hospital bill and urged residents to take precaution to prevent such occurrences in future.