{"id":93501,"date":"2017-03-11T04:59:13","date_gmt":"2017-03-11T09:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=93501"},"modified":"2017-03-11T04:59:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-11T09:59:13","slug":"guatemala-mourns-victims-of-fire-as-death-toll-climbs-to-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/03\/11\/guatemala-mourns-victims-of-fire-as-death-toll-climbs-to-37\/","title":{"rendered":"Guatemala mourns victims of fire as death toll climbs to 37"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Guatemalans<\/a>
Guatemalans on Friday held an early-morning candle-lit vigil outside the president’s residence in the capital, in memory and in protest of the scores of minors and teenagers killed earlier this week in a fire at a youth shelter. (Photo: JustyCinMD\/Flickr<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GUATEMALA CITY\u2014Guatemalans on Friday held an early-morning candle-lit vigil outside the president’s residence in the capital, in memory and in protest of the scores of minors and teenagers killed earlier this week in a fire at a youth shelter.<\/p>\n

The death toll from the blaze — which occurred late Tuesday or early Wednesday at the Virgen de la Asuncion Shelter in San Jose Pinula, in the central department of Guatemala — climbed to 37 as several of the most critically wounded succumbed to their injuries.<\/p>\n

Police are investigating the cause of the fire, which was initially traced to rioting teenagers setting fire to their dormitory mattresses, to protest poor treatment and squalid conditions.<\/p>\n

One donor said the facility “was more like a prison than a shelter”, according to the daily Prensa Libre.<\/p>\n

The same donor, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the sponge mattresses had holes in them because the girls used them to make sanitary napkins.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, President Jimmy Morales addressed growing anger at the shocking tragedy at a press conference, announcing three days of mourning and pledging to close the shelter.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of the blaze, the director of the facility was fired and 70 of the children were reunited with their families, said Morales.<\/p>\n

But critics want more to be done. They point out that Anahi Keller, the head of the Social Welfare Ministry, which oversees the shelter and others like it, was a producer for the national TV network, and has no prior experience.<\/p>\n

Morales, a former TV personality, defended Keller\u00b4s appointment at the conference.<\/p>\n

The shelter housed some 600 minors and adolescents, mainly young girls from abusive homes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GUATEMALA CITY\u2014Guatemalans on Friday held an early-morning candle-lit vigil outside the president’s residence in the capital, in memory and in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":93502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,16,17],"tags":[16466],"class_list":["post-93501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news","category-news-w","tag-guatemala-shelter-fire","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}