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Burnt down boarding school building in Mahdia, Guyana
Photo: Guyana's Department of Public Information / AP Photo / picture-alliance / dpa
Over the weekend, 18 schoolgirls and a young boy died in a fire at a boarding school in Mahdia, Guyana. The girls concerned were between eleven and 17 years old. The five-year-old son of a boarding school employee was also among the dead.
Now it turned out that it was probably a classmate who started the fire. The girl's cell phone had previously been taken away. It is said to have been so angry about this that it threatened to "burn down" the entire building. Shortly thereafter, the teenager went into a washroom and sprayed bug spray and set it on fire.
The teenager had already made a confession, a government representative told the AFP news agency on Tuesday. Accordingly, it was generally forbidden at the school to take cell phones into the dormitory.
Girls should not sneak out of the building secretly
According to media reports, the fire spread rapidly in the wooden and concrete building. To make matters worse, the doors of the dormitory had apparently been locked by the security staff.
According to national security adviser Gerald Gouveia, the alleged arsonist was disciplined for allegedly having an affair with an elderly man. The doors of the dormitory were locked to prevent girls from sneaking out of the building at night.
Guyana's President Irfaan Ali met with bereaved relatives and visited injured people in hospital. The fire brigade had managed to save some people trapped by the flames by punching a hole in a wall. The president declared a three-day national mourning.
The parliamentary republic of Guyana is located on the Atlantic coast of South America and has about 790,000 inhabitants. Mahdia is a town several hundred kilometers southwest of the capital Georgetown. Many indigenous people live here, there are gold and diamond deposits.
ala/AFP