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Whenever one receives a call shortly after midnight, it is often to receive bad news. Sometimes, if it is that one is a driver and had just dropped someone home, then the call would be to find out of the driver had reached home safely. The phone call that I received shortly after midnight, Sunday, was bad news. It was so bad that I struggled to get back to sleep. It was news about children dying in a fire at Mahdia. Then I heard the planes going over so I knew that it was more than bad.
Planes rarely fly out of Ogle at that hour. Once they do it is to undertake serious business, like a medivac. By mid-morning I got the terrible news. Nearly two dozen children had been killed in a fire at Mahdia. These are things that one hears about in other countries. The largest number of people I knew to suffer in a domestic fire in Guyana was eight. That was way back in 1964 when political violence was the order of the day in Guyana.
There was the fire in the Camp Street jail that killed 17 in 2016. The number this time was 19, although there were reports of more. It was Guyana’s worst tragedy. Those who say Jonestown, must remember that Jonestown was an American tragedy transported into Guyana.
So there I was asking myself how could children who had left their homes for school perish in a fire of that magnitude? People spoke of hearing the screams of the children, all of whom were trapped inside the dorm. How are those parents reacting? I send my child to school to make life better for everyone, and that child is locked up in a dorm and burnt to death. There are reports of twin sisters dying in the fire.
Being trapped in a building is not unusual, but when I found out that this building had been transformed into a prison for schoolgirls, I saw red. No school facility should be a maximum-security prison. It is shocking that this government could see it fit to authorise such a development.
President’s College offered dormitory facility for school children. At no time was it converted to a prison. There was supervision but not regimentation. In the case of Mahdia I learnt that the authorities decided to convert this facility to a prison because somebody believed that such was the way to avoid teenage pregnancy. The windows had mesh, but someone complained that the boys could cut the mesh. Then someone reported that a group of girls had escaped to attend a party in Mahdia.
Converting a dormitory into a prison cannot contain raging hormones. What was there to prevent shenanigans after school and before bedtime? What was there to prevent similar displays of affection at the end of the school term? What happened at weekends? After all there was one dorm Mother but she has a life of her own. She had a five-year-old son.
Whatever the case, the authorities awarded a contract to someone to grill the entire building. Surely there was no consultation with the Guyana Fire Service. There was no fire escape. And for a facility that housed some 60 children there were no emergency exits.
Then there is the condition that the dormitory Mother should have been sleeping with the children. I now hear that she lived in an adjoining apartment. This meant that she habitually locked these girls in. There must have been complaints but there are no records of any.
The conditions inside the dorm were said to be hazardous with exposed wires. The Guyana Power and Light did respond to a report but there is no record of what was done. Suffice it to say that on occasions people would use scotch tape to insulate the wires. But the most serious thing of all was the manner in which threats were handled.
According to reports one of the female residents of the dorm was incensed because someone in authority had confiscated her phone. In a fit of anger, she reportedly blurted out that she was going to burn down the place. To whom did she issue the threat? Was the dorm Mother informed? It would be very surprising if one or more of the persons who heard the threat did not report it. Then the dorm Mother reportedly locked the dorm Sunday night and went about her business. In the process she left her five-year-old son in the building. So much for supervision.
The fire started and it was obvious that no person was around in the early stages. The fire service with its sole fire tanker reported that it responded within four minutes. One officer reported that the fire was well and truly ablaze when the tanker arrived.
With what was the dorm constructed? Surely no building code was in effect. So it took some residents to smash the wall to drag out the survivors, some of whom were reportedly on fire. That was a shocking sight.
In any part of the world someone would have accepted the blame. Guyana is a different place. I have not heard anything but messages of sympathy. That does not explain what happened. In the aftermath I heard that the person making the threat was being held for mental evaluation. I don’t know if any blame has been apportioned to the dorm Mother. The people of Mahdia are saying that she got the job through her connection to the party.
They also say that a previous dorm Mother was removed because she belonged to another political party. This was the dorm Mother who was in control and whom the girls appreciated. When politics trumps reason there is bound to be a calamity. Meanwhile, the mean stream media is awaiting its turn to ask the many unanswered questions.
