A GoFundMe
campaign has been established for the family of a 20-year-old
non-verbal autistic man who died in a house fire on Boake
Street in South Fallingbrook early Wednesday morning.
Axel
Karuranga was sleeping in his third floor bedroom when a
fire broke out in his family's townhome shortly after 6:45
a.m.
Axel's
mother Jasqueline, his sister Pamela, 27, and his brother
Michael, 24, all managed to escape the house safely, but
he did not. The eldest of the four siblings, Gael, was not
home at the time. Michael tried to get to Axel's room to
save him but was turned away due to the thuck black smoke
that had filled the top two floors.
When fire
fighters arrived on the scene they managed to knock down
the fire within 20 minutes and extricate Axel from the house.
Unfortunately, efforts to resuscitate the young man were
unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The
cause of the fire was not immediately known and is still
under investigation.
Axel,
who is the youngest of the four siblings, was co-raised
by his mother, sister and brothers. The Karuranga family
immigrated to Canada 20 years ago after fleeing genocide
in their native Rwanda.
A family
friend established a GoFundMe account to help raise money
to pay for the young man's funeral and help replace some
of the clothes and household items destroyed in the fire.
"Losing
a house and starting from scratch is horrible, doing so
without your son or brother is unbearable,” Sabrina April
wrote in her online appeal. “Together we can make a real
difference and take some stress away from the Karuranga
family.”
By noon
on Saturday, the campaign had raised over $32,000. Donations
can be made by visiting https://ca.gofundme.com/tragic-fire-and-life-lost-karuranga-family.
In an
interview with CBC Ottawa, Pamela Karuranga said the reality
of losing her baby brother has yet to fully set in.
"I don't
know what to do and I don't know the best way to mourn my
brother and what he would appreciate, because it still feels
like a bad dream," said Pamela.
The family
has been relocated to a hotel while the damage to their
home is being assessed and the necessart repairs are made
to make it liveable again.
The siblings
remember their brother as happy, energetic and generous,
eagerly greeting them when they got home from work. Relatives
have been arriving in Ottawa to lend the grieving family
their support over the past couple of days and help plan
Axel's funeral.
(This
story was made possible thanks to the generous support of
our local business partners.)
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