It requires an event of serious significance to grab the attention of the international mainstream media. Even with wars, pestilence, massive displacement of people, refugees everywhere, media found one voice last Sunday 21^st May to alert the world to a tragedy that unfolded in Guyana. Nineteen children (now 20) died in a fire at Mahdia, a mining town located in the middle of Guyana some 200 miles from the capital, Georgetown.  With the exception of a five-year-old boy, all victims were Indigenous girls aged 12 to 18 from remote villages served by the boarding school.

Of course, reports on the subject have gone through the roof as is often the case once social media take hold. It follows that the stories are a mixture of facts, hearsay, and creative writing. In the end we will find out what really happened. Or not.

However, there are some facts that can be discerned at this stage: 59 indigenous girls resided at the school. The windows of the partially wooden building were fitted with iron grills, while the doors were fitted with key-operated locks that can only be accessed from the inside.

Iron grills and multiple locks are a universal sight around the country from businesses to private dwellings – fortresses to keep out deadly marauders bent on taking as they please including your life. Many have died by fire in these homes because they ran up against the iron grilled windows and the multiple deadbolt locks on the doors.

An eye witness, a resident of Mahdia, was the first to arrive at the scene and said that he and a couple of friends were the only ones there. There were no security guards to be seen. He said that he and his friends managed to break through the iron grill on one window and pulled a few children to safety. One of his colleagues ran to the fire station only to find that no one was awake. And when the fire truck finally arrived, it had no water.

There were no fire alarms in the school, no bells to ring, no fire drills. This was an accident waiting to happen. And it was known from the day the school was opened. The fire department reported this to the government and the management, but nobody took heed; it was like pouring water on a duck’s back.

Media reports, without exception, described the building as a death trap.

Utterings from government betray no sense of outrage. Yes, their “hearts go out to the victims and their families”; and, of course, they will be duly compensated. But no government department is put under the microscope, no responsible official or government minister feel that they should resign. The government’s outrage goes no further than setting up a commission to get to the truth. Meanwhile the truth is staring them in the face – they knowingly housed children in a death trap.

Instead the Guyana government took the advice of a totally inept police force and charged a 15-year-old student with 20 counts of murder for setting of the fire. Yes, she is being charged as an adult when the actual adults who designed and built a structure, which was marked for disaster from the beginning, will answer to no one.