JEDDAH, 13 March — While the families of the 66 schoolgirls who were killed or injured in Monday’s fire at a school in Makkah struggled to piece together what is left of their shattered lives, a torrent of questions have been raised regarding the safety standards of rented schools still being used by the Ministry of Education and the Presidency of Girls’ Education.
The incident has caused an uproar in the Kingdom, with the schoolgirls’ relatives and the local media blaming the Presidency for Girls’ Education for inadequate safety procedures and overcrowding.
There are calls for heads to roll.
“It is pure negligence which killed the girls,” read the headline in Okaz. “Who is to blame?” asked Al-Eqtisadiah. “There is something wrong (in these schools) and it has to do with those responsible for girls’ education, especially in the city of Makkah,” said a front-page editorial in Al-Nadwah, the only Saudi daily published in the holy city where the incident took place.
Al-Nadwah quoted one survivor as saying that while the girls were dying inside the locked gates of the school, the Civil Defense and the Commission for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice kept arguing outside over their respective jurisdiction. Some passersby rushed to the scene carrying water buckets only to be stopped by the commission’s men, who did not want males to enter the school.
The authorities launched an official investigation into the incident, which happened at an intermediate school where there are 800 Saudi and foreign students. The deaths and injuries were the result of a stampede after fire broke out in the rented building, according the Civil Defense.
None of the girls was killed by the actual fire itself. Some threw themselves out of windows, while others were trampled to death on the stairs.
Most government schools lack emergency exits and fire-fighting facilities. Nor do they conduct drills for evacuation or rescue operations.
The situation was complicated further by the fact that the fleeing students could not get out of the school compound quickly because the gatekeeper had locked it and then left his post, according to one school teacher.
Many of those injured remain in a critical condition. One girl is in a coma.
Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, instructed that those requiring advanced treatment be air-flown to the ICU at King Abdul Aziz Medical City of the National Guard in Riyadh. The 31st Intermediate School, the scene of the tragedy, is one of more than 9,000 rented schools in the Kingdom, at least half of them for girls.
President of Girls’ Education Dr. Al-Murshid stressed the need to house schools in more suitable buildings, saying his department is gradually replacing rented buildings. The government has allocated SR2 billion for this purpose in the current year’s budget.
The incident drew full media attention, with some papers allocating several of their inside pages to the tragedy. “Any investigation has to be followed by mass resignations involving all those connected with the incident. Even before that, there must be sackings and other forms of punishment,” wrote columnist Zuhair Al-Harithy in Al-Eqtisadiah.
“What excuse are officials at the Presidency for Girls’ Education going to come up with? Would they have the courage to admit their mistakes and shortcomings?” wrote Muhammad Al-Sheikh in the same paper.
“An electric short circuit is the inevitable reason given by the Civil Defense for any fire that takes place. Does the Civil Defense conduct periodical checks on every rented school or government building?” asked businessman Hussein Abu Daoud.
In its editorial, Al-Nadwah said it took almost one hour after the fire for the rescue operations to begin in earnest. “The school administrators scrambled to find a mobile phone to report to the Presidency of Girls’ Education so that the presidency would in turn alert the Civil Defense. By then one full hour was lost in a vicious circle void of everything except for the lives of our innocent daughters and of meaningless central instructions.”
The paper criticized Director of Girls’ Education in Makkah Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Aqla, who it said smashed the camera of its photographer at the scene to prevent him from taking picture, citing orders from higher authorities. “We do not know who gave Dr. Al-Aqla these orders to assault the photographer of a newspaper, smash his camera and take away his films in such loutish behavior,” it said.
The girls’ school authorities also complain that there is no direct contact between them and the Civil Defense. “There is only four fire extinguishers in our school. We received them from the presidency five years ago, and there was no subsequent maintenance of them,” Fatma Behairy, director of the Public Nursery School No. 14 in Jeddah, told Arab News.
Behairy urged the Civil Defense department to hold drills on how to rescue children when there is a fire. She also called for direct contact between girls’ schools and the department. At present, they are allowed to contact the Civil Defense only via the presidency.
Government schools are very poor in comparison with private schools when it comes to safety arrangements, according to Awatef Murad, director of Baity Al-Sagheer school in Jeddah.
