The Catholic church in Guatemala has called for ‘just punishment’ for those responsible for the deaths of 40 girls killed in a fire in a children’s home as three people responsible for overseeing the government-run shelter were arrested on suspicion of homicide.
Former Social Welfare Secretary Carlos Rodas, who resigned from his post last week, was detained along with Deputy Secretary Anahi Keller and the shelter's director Santos Torres on 15 March.
As well as suspected homicide, the trio were also held on suspicion of mistreatment of minors and failure to fulfil duty.
“The tragedy at the Hogar Virgen de la Asunción reception centre was not a simple accident, but the tragic end of an irregular situation that had been denounced so many times", said the President of the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala, Mgr Gonzalo de Villa y Vásquez, in a statement released on the 15 March.
"Together with the entire Guatemalan society we ask for an investigation, the just punishment of those responsible and urgent preventive measures so similar situations are not repeated", continued the bishops' statement.
Last week, new evidence emerged suggesting the girls may have been unable to escape the fire in the care home in the east of Guatemala city because they were locked into a dormitory.
According to a team of 16 prosecutors handling the investigation, the group may have been locked into the small room as a punishment after they had escaped from the shelter and been recaptured by police a day earlier. Police say the fire broke out when the girls set a mattress alight in protest.
“There were 52 girls in that room, and if someone locked the doors, the consequences are serious,” said Hilda Morales, the adjunct prosecutor for human rights in Guatemala.
Although the locked doors are still a ‘presumption’, evidence of negligence in the home has been mounting.
Guatemala's human rights prosecutor Jorge de Leon announced last week that the younger children had fled the shelter because they were being abused by older residents.
Legislators heard that only three of the 64 security cameras were working in the shelter, which housed around 750 children in a space meant for 500.
Questions have also been raised about the response of firefighters and the police. Speaking to a congressional panel last week, police and fire officials blamed each other for a 40-minute delay in reaching the victims.
The care home took in youths up to the age of 18 who were homeless or victims of abuse, but had also been functioning as a juvenile detention centre.
In 2013, a 14-year-old girl was strangled by another resident, according to local media.
Thousands of people protested against the Government in the streets of Guatemala City on 11 March, reading the names and ages of the dead girls.
On Sunday, Pope Francis prayed for the victims in St Peter’s Square.
He said he was praying and asked others to do likewise “for all the girls and boys who are victims of violence, maltreatment, exploitation and war” in the world.
The pope said: “This is a plague, a hidden cry that must be listened to by all of us. We can’t continue to pretend not to see and not to hear it.”
PICTURE: A woman is treated by paramedics near the scene of a fire in a care home in San Jose Pinula, near Guatemala City, which killed 40 young girls.
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