Rescuers Joash Ondieki and Kevin Bahati, who helped save a three-year-old girl from a burning fourth-floor apartment in Gachie, Kiambu/ SCREENGRAB

A desperate cry for help from a three-year-old girl trapped in a burning fourth-floor apartment prompted three men to risk their lives in a rescue that saved her but could not save her two siblings.

Video footage watched by the Star from the incident on Saturday shows one of the rescuers battling intense heat and smoke as he holds the child’s hand and lowers her towards the third floor, where two other men wait to receive her.

The men then rush the girl to hospital, where she receives first aid.

Joash Ondieki, one of the rescuers, said he could not bear the thought of failing the child as she pleaded for help from inside the burning apartment.

“I did not want to fail that child, and I did not want to fail that child who was staring at us while shouting, ‘Help! Help! Please help! Please help!’ I had to do it,” Ondieki said.

Another rescuer, Kevin Bahati, recounted how they coordinated their efforts to get the girl out of the burning apartment. He said they guided the child towards the third floor, where they were waiting to receive her, before working out how to get her to safety as the fire spread.

“I told Juma to hold the child and lower her to where we were on the third floor. We waited there and discussed how we could get her out safely. We then worked together to open the lower door so we could get through to the next house,” Bahati said.

The rescue unfolded after children playing nearby noticed smoke billowing from the apartment, where three children were inside.

As the fire spread, the men focused on getting the children out. They managed to rescue the three-year-old girl, but her two siblings remained trapped inside as flames engulfed the house.

The two children died in the fire, and their bodies were taken to a funeral home.

A post-mortem examination established carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause of death.

The rescue has left the family grappling with the loss of two children, while their father, Kennedy Njau, is calling for a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fire.

Njau said he and the children’s mother shared parenting responsibilities and that the children had been in her care over the weekend.

He claimed the mother had told him the children had been locked inside the house when she left, expecting a house help to arrive. The circumstances surrounding the children being left in the apartment and the cause of the fire have not been independently established.

Police are investigating reports that the children had been locked inside while their mother was away.

Njau said he wanted detectives at Gihara Police Station in Kiambaa to establish what happened and ensure those responsible, if any, were held accountable.

“Anyone who can help establish the cause of the fire should come forward. This story should not be treated like any other story,” he said, stressing that two innocent lives had been lost.

He said the children were still very young, with one not yet able to walk properly.

The investigation is expected to establish how the fire started and the circumstances in which the children were left inside the apartment.