Guatemala in mourning after fire kills 29 girls in children’s shelter
Print Edition
GUATEMALA declared three days of mourning after a blaze on Wednesday in a government-run children’s shelter killed at least 29 teenage girls and focused attention on allegations of sexual and other abuse in the facility.
All those killed were aged between 14 and 17, with seven succumbing to their injuries in hospital, where they were rushed with 31 others, medical officials said early yesterday.
Most died of burns in the fire in the Virgen de Asuncion home in San Jose Pinula, 10 kilometers east of Guatemala City, officials said.
President Jimmy Morales said on national television that he had ordered the dismissal of the shelter’s director.
The blaze was believed to have started during an overnight rebellion in the center, which holds nearly double the 400 people it was designed to house. Some youths tried to escape, news reports said.
Morales said that before the fire, orders had been given to transfer some of the youths to other facilities because of the overcrowding.
“They were serving food to the teenagers when some of them started a fire in a mattress and that’s how the fire was set,” said Abner Paredes, a prosecutor defending children’s rights.
Human rights activists held a vigil on Wednesday night, lighting candles and placing flowers outside the shelter and in the main square in Guatemala City.
“It was a ticking time bomb. This was to be expected,” one of the center’s former employees, Angel Cardenas, said outside, adding he had lodged several warnings about conditions inside.
At the entrance of the shelter — whose imposing, barbed wire-topped concrete wall showed no sign of the drama inside — crying relatives crowded the entrance. They were looking for news of the children kept there. Police blocked access to them and to journalists.
A few survivors were seen hugging kin on the pine tree-lined road. But many other family members were left unattended.
“They don’t want to give any information at all,” said Rosa Aguirre, a 22-year-old street vendor who had rushed from the capital to see if her two sisters, aged 13 and 15, and her 17-year-old brother were among the casualties.
Guatemalan media said the shelter’s occupants had revolted overnight and into Wednesday against alleged sexual abuse by staff, and over poor food and conditions.
The center, supervised by state authorities, hosts minors under age 18 who are victims of domestic violence or found living on the street.
They are sent there by court order and are under the responsibility of the social welfare ministry.
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