Guyana is mourning. We have experienced the worst mass fire in our history and 19 children (18 of them girls) lost their lives.
As a country we woke up to one of the worst news on Monday, May 22nd to learn that the dormitory that housed the female students of the Mahdia Secondary School was burnt to the ground.
Twin sisters Mary and Martha Dandrade, Bibi Rita Jeffrey, Sabrina John, Loreen Evans, Belnisa Evans, Omefia Edwin, Natalie Bellarmine, Andrea Roberts, Lorita Williams, Nickleen Robinson, Sherena Daniels, Eulanda Carter, Lisa Roberts, Cleoma Simon, Tracil Thomas, and sisters Delecia Edwards and Arianna Edwards along with five-year-old Adonijah Jerome, the son of the caretaker all perished. A number of them hailed from villages outside of Mahdia.
I am sure we all experienced a myriad of emotions ranging from shock, anger but most of all just gut-wrenching grief. Of course, ours cannot be compared to the parents of the dead and those who were directly affected by the fire; those who are hospitalised and mourning the loss of colleagues they ate and lodged with.
There was no way I could not have commented on the tragedy in this space. I was not there but I could hear the haunting screams of those girls as they sought to escape the fiery building that was heavily grilled.
“I just can’t imagine the pain, agony, horror, trauma, and panic attack them children went through crying out for help, it hurts me to the core. I am not hurt at the passing of my sister or the students because death is something that we all have to go through, but the way… consumed… in a blazing fire, is very painful. I can only imagine burning your hand on a baking pan and how painful it does be. What about the fire all over your body and no one to help you, where to run from it?”
These were the words of Rihanna Jeffrey, the sister of Bibi Rita Jeffrey, cousin of Sabrina John, and Loreen Evans, and aunt of Belnisa Evans, all from Karisparu village.
As I read her words in one of the reports I could not help the tears from flowing. I could just imagine the pain she is feeling. How can she and all the other relatives sleep at night? How is the mother of the twins moving on from this? Or the single mother who did her best to ensure her daughter got a secondary education?
Bibi Rita Jeffrey’s father, Roy Felix Williams had this to say: “These are grieving times for me because that is my daughter and I love her bad and then again, I don’t know what could take place because I have so many things to say. I wanted to tell the President himself yesterday, but I did not get a chance to speak to him because I don’t want these 19 lives to go down just like that and someone is responsible for this. I came with a mind to tell the President and everybody else responsible for this to arrest somebody for what has gone down and I say these lives cannot be gone for nothing because they said that this fire was maliciously set and was willfully set.”
He described his baby girl as: “… a very good child; respectful to others, she don’t behave bad, rude or anything. She was a very kind child.”
But what struck me the most was this: “So far I have identify her but the only thing that confuse me is that I don’t know if she had earrings because it’s months I did not see her.”
Imagine he had not seen his daughter for months because she was away getting a secondary education. And that is the sad reality for most of the parents whose children were in that dormitory. Sometimes they only see their children during the August holidays because the other holidays are too short and it is too expensive to take them from and to school during that period.
I read that some of the parents travel on bicycles for miles to take their children to school.
Another person, who wished to remain anonymous, shared that the fire happened so fast that she can’t say how the fire started. All she knew, she explained, was that her phone rang on Sunday night and her mom was saying, “The dorms on fire.” She recalled that she got up and tried to contact the students, just to hear that some students didn’t make it and her five-year-old cousin, Adonijah, had also died in the fire.
Little Adonijah was the son of the dorm mother and according to one of our reports he slipped away as his mother opened the door to her room. The children had pounded on the door to wake her and in her dazed state she attempted to open the main door (it was padlocked from the inside) twice, dropping the keys in the process, before it was opened.
I am sure it was not entirely her idea to have the doors padlocked nor to have the windows grilled but even if it were the powers that be should have known better. She is grieving not only for her son but I am sure for the 18 girls who would have been her children for months during the year.
I don’t want to cast any blame. I suppose now is not the time, but just to say that this tragedy has to engineer change, including fire safety measures and (this is what villagers are calling for) more secondary schools so that children don’t have to leave their homes to access an education.
The 19 are no more but let’s work on protecting those who are here with us. Let us support as much as we can those who are grieving, be sensitive and as the saying goes ‘do unto others as you would have them to do you’. If there is something that would affect you were you in the position of those grieving then just don’t do it.
Mourn we must, but let this be a wakeup call in every sense.
