two children seriously burned in Vittoria

Very serious episode in the last few hours in Vittoria, in the Ragusa area, where a man set fire to his sister’s house after a family argument starting a fire that has burned his relatives including his two grandchildren, two kids. The episode occurred last night in the Trinità San Giovanni district of Vittoria where the firefighters, medical emergency services and law enforcement intervened.

What initially appeared to be an accident soon turned out to be an arson fire. According to an initial reconstruction of the incident, the person who set the flames was a man originally from Tunisia who was a guest at his sister’s house. After a quarrel with relatives, according to a first hypothesis, the man would have left and returned shortly after.

At this point he would have piled up some tires and household goods in front of the door of the house, setting the flames. The man would have used a sort of improvised torch with a stick with a rag soaked in flammable liquid on top, setting everything on fire before running away.

The flames surprised the family members while they were sleeping. The fire broke out around 2.30 am on the night between Wednesday and Thursday 13 June, soon enveloping the entire house, a small house in Piazza dell’Unità which was destroyed. After the firefighters intervened, the family was rushed to hospital. Four people were burned in the fire, husband, wife and two children who were said to be very serious.

The injured were transported to the hospitals of Ragusa and Vittoria. In these hours they could be transferred to the “Cannizzaro” hospital in Catania due to the seriousness of their conditions. At the moment, it seems that the man accused of what happened during the night has disappeared but the police are on his trail. It seems that there were very strong tensions and conflicts in the family recently.