Girls Dormitory Deliberately Set On Fire By Student, Says Official

Investigators in Guyana think a student who was angry that her cell phone was taken was the one who intentionally started a fire that killed 19 people, largely girls confined in a school dormitory.

National Security Adviser Gerald Gouveia said the suspect, who is among the injured, had been punished by the dormitory management for having an affair with an older guy.

According to Mr. Gouveia, the student allegedly threatened to ignite the hostel and then started a fire in a restroom area.

The building, made of wood, concrete, and iron grill, was engulfed in flames late on Sunday after the dorm administrator, or house mother, had shut the doors for the evening to keep the girls from snatching away, according to Mr. Gouveia.

“She did this out of love for them. She felt she was forced to do so because many of them leave the building at night to socialize,” he told The Associated Press.

“This is a very sad situation, but the state is going to work with the students and the families to provide all the support they need.”

All but one of the victims were indigenous girls aged 12 to 18 from remote villages served by the boarding school in Mahdia, a mining community near the Brazil border.

The remaining victim was the five-year-old son of the house mother. Many of the victims were trapped as the building burned, though firefighters were able to rescue people by breaking holes through one of the walls.

“The house mother was asleep at the time inside the building but panicked and could not find the right keys to unlock the building from inside but she made it out. She also lost her five-year-old child in the fire,” Mr Gouveia said.

Many of the nine hospitalized patients are in critical condition. Because the student was under 16, Mr. Gouveia predicted that the police would accuse the man who was involved with her of statutory rape.

According to Mr. Gouveia, the Guyanan government has accepted offers from the US to send forensic and other expert teams to assist with the inquiry.
The government also was sending specialists in DNA identification to help identify remains of 13 of the 19 victims who died at the scene.

“Leaders from all over the world have been offering to help us at this time. They were calling and messaging President Ali (Irfaan) while he was on the ground in Madhia on Monday,” Mr Gouveia said.

About 200 miles from Georgetown, the country’s capital, is the gold- and diamond-mining town of Madhia.

According to Deputy Fire Chief Dwayne Scotland, more lives might have been saved if the fire department had been alerted to the fire earlier. According to him, locals had been trying in vain to put out the fire and evacuate people when firefighters arrived.

“The building was well engulfed,” he said.

The most recent deadliest fire in the nation, which killed 17 inmates in the main Georgetown jail in 2016, was surpassed by this week’s dormitory fire.