COLUMBUS, Ohio — When a fire ripped through a north Columbus apartment complex, families were forced out into the cold in the middle of the night.
It started around 1:45 a.m. last Saturday at a complex on Tamarack Boulevard, near Morse Road. Several people went to the hospital, and many more were displaced from their homes.
Among them were five families – three Nepali, two Burmese – now being helped by the Bhutanese Community of Central Ohio, or BCCO. The organization’s executive director, Sudarshan Pyakurel, says many of those families are vulnerable – elderly, disabled or single parents.
“That location is very close to the Nepali market and Kroger, and they could walk there, do their shopping, ethnic grocery stores and things like that, and also it’s close to public transportation,” he said.
What made the weekend fire all the more devastating was the trauma it stirred up for many of the families. They are refugees who escaped some troubling circumstances in refugee camps to come to America.
“When this ethnic cleansing happened, the first thing they did was burn down the houses,” Pyakurel said. “And people have a bad, bad, bad memories when the house goes on fire, even if that is not their own. So it’s very tragic at this time.”
Pyakurel is doing what he can to help, securing a new apartment for one of the families and helping to provide some basic items, including food and clothing. But much more is needed. That’s why his organization has started a GoFundMe for the displaced families.
He’s also trying to do what he can to replace state IDs and other important documents that have been lost. He says he has struggled to get that help.
“When natural disasters happen, we should look into our system, who are these families, and immediately the first thing with the food is ID,” he said. “You hand them food, you hand them clothes, you hand them ID. Because ID is such an important part of identity existence and everything we can do.”
Meanwhile, the cause of the fire is still under investigation, according to the Columbus Division of Fire.