CARICOM Sends Condolences to Guyana over Fatal School Fire

Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Doctor Carla Barnett has sent condolences to Guyana, following a fire at a school that claimed the lives of at least twenty schoolchildren. The fire in Mahdia, near the centre of Guyana, early this morning, swept through a high school boarding school killing at least nineteen of the students and injuring several others. Fourteen of the children died at the scene and another five at a hospital. Six others, including two in critical condition, were airlifted to the capital, Georgetown, while others remained under local hospital care. When firefighters arrived on the scene, the building was already engulfed in flames, according to Guyana’s Fire Service. Firefighters managed to rescue twenty other students by breaking holes in a portion of the wall of the building. It is not known at this time what started the blaze.