The school was severely damaged after the blaze
GEORGETOWN, May 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The fire at a schoolgirls’ dormitory that killed 19 people in Guyana may have been started “maliciously,” police said, as anger grew in the small South American country the day after the blaze.
Sunday’s inferno gutted a building housing girls aged 11-12 and 16-17.
Guyana Police Commissioner Clifton Hicken said during a press conference that an “initial investigation suggests… that (the fire) was maliciously set.”
“Our investigation is continuing,” Hicken told reporters, joined by President Irfaan Ali, who declared three days of national mourning.
No suspects have yet been identified, Hicken added.
“Fourteen youths died at the scene, while five died at the Mahdia District Hospital,” according to a statement from the fire department.
The government had previously said 20 people died in the blaze at the Mahdia Secondary School in the central part of the country.
Guyana, with a population of 800,000, is South America’s only English-speaking nation. It is a former Dutch and British colony which recently discovered it holds the world’s largest per capita oil reserves.
After the weekend tragedy, more than a dozen children received hospital treatment locally while six serious cases were airlifted to the capital Georgetown.
“Two children remain in critical condition, while four are nursing severe injuries as a result of the incident,” added the fire brigade.
There were 63 pupils inside the building when the fire broke out.
“This is a major disaster. It is horrible, it is painful,” Ali said on Sunday night.
Ali said he had ordered arrangements to be made in Georgetown’s two major hospitals “so that every single child who requires attention be given the best possible opportunity to get that attention.”
At Monday’s press conference Hicken said autopsies had already been performed on the bodies of at least six of the victims, and that all of them would undergo DNA testing.
The government said officials were supporting efforts at Ogle airport in the capital to “receive the critical patients and coordinate an emergency plan of action.”
“A full-scale medical emergency action plan has been launched,” it added. — NNN-AGENCIES
