Several children were rescued from a building by local artisans at Abinkyi Market in the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi after a fire gutted the building Thursday afternoon.

The building houses a church and a daycare centre. Reports say the children had to be rescued through a window as the fire was intense. 

The pastor of Christ Cosmopolitan Church and his associates are reported to have fought off firemen and the media during the episode. “They smashed my mobile phone and destroyed another’s camera,” Luv FM’s Erastus Asare Donkor reported. 

The reporter said there were monkeys and other animals in the building that suggests something untoward might be going on. 

It's not clear what caused the fire, he said.