{"id":9369,"date":"2017-03-08T20:56:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T20:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/guatemala-childrens-home-blaze-kills-19-teenage-girls\/"},"modified":"2017-03-08T20:56:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T20:56:12","slug":"guatemala-childrens-home-blaze-kills-19-teenage-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/guatemala-childrens-home-blaze-kills-19-teenage-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Guatemala children’s home blaze kills 19 teenage girls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AnImage copyright AFP
Image caption A victim of the fire is brought to a hospital in San Jose Pinula <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nineteen teenage girls have died in a blaze at a children's care home in Guatemala, officials say.<\/p>\n

About 25 other people were injured in the fire at the Virgen de Asuncion shelter in San Jose Pinula, about 25km (15 miles) south-east of the capital, Guatemala City.<\/p>\n

Police said the blaze may have been started by some of the residents.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, police officers intervened after a riot broke out at the home. About 60 children escaped.<\/p>\n

Some alleged they had been mistreated or sexually abused.<\/p>\n

Oscar Franco, a spokesman for the volunteer firefighters, told local media: "At least 25 people were injured and transferred to hospitals and we have confirmed 19 bodies."<\/p>\n

The fire ripped through the facility in minutes.<\/p>\n

Image copyright Reuters
Image caption Anxious relatives gathered outside the shelter <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption Following the fire, police secured the site, which had previously seen a riot <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nery Ramos, the head of Guatemala's national police, said the fire was started by a group of young people at the shelter.<\/p>\n

Firefighters battled to contain the flames as desperate family members arrived at the scene to try to find their loved ones.<\/p>\n

After the blaze, images showed burned bodies covered by blankets lying in one of the blackened rooms.<\/p>\n

The children who fled on the eve of the fire said it was due to poor conditions and mistreatment following the riot, which left the facility damaged.<\/p>\n

The UN children's fund in Guatemala said on Twitter it "condemns the tragedy at the Virgin of the Assumption Home. These children and adolescents must be protected."<\/p>\n

Local reports say the capacity of the home is 400, but that many more children were living there at the time.<\/p>\n

The shelter takes in children up to the age of 18 who have suffered abuse or trafficking, or have been abandoned.<\/p>\n

But local media say the shelter was also functioning as a juvenile detention centre, to which judges were sending adolescents involved in criminal cases.<\/p>\n

A deadly fire at a children's home in Mexico in 2009 left 49 dead.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright AFPImage caption A victim of the fire is brought to a hospital in San Jose Pinula Nineteen teenage girls have died in a blaze at a children's care<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}