No child should bear the responsibility of their parents’ wrongdoing, but a nine-year-old boy in the province of Southeast Sulawesi was reportedly a victim of his parents’ row with their neighbors, even after his death.
The boy, named Ramadan, tragically died in a house fire on Saturday dawn in the Betoambari Sub-district of Baubau City. According to reports, Ramadan was left at home with his elder brother, 16-year-old Risno, as their parents were away and their grandmother, who lived with them, was spending the night at a relative’s house in another regency.
While the boys were asleep, fire erupted inside the house, which woke them both up. The brothers attempted to leave the house, but were initially unable to as the front door was locked. While the fire was raging, Risno managed to get out of the house, but Ramadan remained.
As reported by Kompas, the neighbors first noticed the fire after hearing an explosion from inside the boys’ house, by which time the fire had already engulfed the house. Witnesses say Risno was screaming at their neighbors for help, but was already in great pain due to the burn injuries he had sustained. The neighbors only realized that Ramadan was still inside when the fire already died down, by which time the nine-year-old was already dead.
Neighborhood chief La Eda said the boys have been living with their grandmother after their parents left home a long time ago due problems with their neighbors.
“I heard their father was in Kalimantan. I don’t know where their mother is. When the fire happened, I heard [about the parents] from the residents. When I got to their house, it was already engulfed in fire,” La Eda told Liputan 6 today.
Risno has been treated for his burn wounds at a local hospital while Ramadan’s body was recovered by the police in the morning. As is customary in Islam and in many Indonesian cultures, it falls to the neighbors to sort out one’s funeral in the absence of kin. But Ramadan’s neighbors reportedly initially refused to bury the boy because some of them had unfinished business with his father.
According to local officials, the father borrowed a motorcycle from a neighbor months ago, which hasn’t been returned to this day. Both he and his wife have been on the run to escape their neighbors’ wrath since, leaving their children behind to be ostracized in the neighborhood.
The neighbors finally agreed to carry out funeral rites for Ramadan after local police pleaded with them and neighborhood officials.
“It’s sad, a boy that young was burned to death and when he had to be buried, he was still linked to his parents’ problems. They should have buried him first,” Murhum District Police Chief Marvi Oksiriana Cakti said.
Authorities have yet to determine the cause of the fire and whether or not there was foul play involved. There have been no reports of the boys’ parents returning home, nor if they have even heard of the tragic news yet.
