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A FIRE KILLED 13 students at a Muslim school in Myanmar’s main city early today, police said, raising tensions in the wake of sectarian clashes despite police assurances that the blaze was accidental.
The government called for calm and sent security forces to the scene after an angry crowd gathered demanding answers about the deadly fire in Yangon, which follows a wave of Buddhist-Muslim killings and arson in central Myanmar.
“Thirteen people, mostly children, were killed during a fire at a Muslim religious school in downtown Yangon,” a police officer at the scene told AFP. “We assume that it was due to an electrical short circuit.”
The doors to the building – which housed a mosque and a religious school where dozens of children were staying in a dormitory – were apparently locked, according to government spokesman Ye Htut, preventing the students from escaping until emergency services arrived.
Police promised to establish a committee – including Muslim leaders – to look into the cause, while the government urged people to avoid spreading rumours.
“Please don’t believe some news on the Internet portraying this case as a religious conflict,” Ye Htut posted on his Facebook page.
Safety standards
Safety standards are generally poor in impoverished Myanmar, which is emerging from decades of military rule.
Some Muslim leaders, however, voiced suspicions that the fire was started deliberately because students and teachers said they had slipped on an oily liquid on the ground floor while escaping.
“The oil smelled like petrol or diesel,” said Shine Win, a Muslim leader, urging the government to “reveal the truth”.
One student who escaped told AFP that his legs and clothes were dirty with the oily liquid.
“I slipped when I stepped on something like oil and almost fell down. As the fire was so big at that time, I didn’t recognise what it was,” he said.
Scorch marks scarred the outside of the building, according to an AFP reporter at the scene, as three military trucks carrying soldiers arrived to keep the peace.
Communal tensions are running high in the former army-ruled country after at least 43 people died last month in a wave of sectarian violence that saw mosques and homes burned down in several towns in central Myanmar.
The government has imposed emergency rule and curfews in some areas.
Yangon has been tense but mostly peaceful following the clashes, which were apparently triggered by an argument in a gold shop in the town of Meiktila that triggered a riot that later spread.
The conflict poses a major challenge for President Thein Sein, who has won international praise for his reform efforts since taking office two years ago.
The situation has calmed in recent days after the former general on Thursday vowed a tough response over the violence, which he blamed on “political opportunists and religious extremists”.
Sectarian strife involving Buddhists and Muslims in the western state of Rakhine last year left at least 180 people dead.
To think there’s a family out there who’s probably been looking for that poor girl for the last twenty years , it’s very sad .
And what about the disappeared don’t they count?
How do you lose a skull?
The poor girl,how could she ever rest in peace,no family as yet,buried in a place she probably never knew,from her shoulders down in a coffin and her skull probably in a box in a basement somewhere..such a sad story..your right Jane how do you lose a skull..
My parents were involved in the recovery of the body of a man in the early 2000′s (?) in the Shannon Estuary. That man has never been identified. He was given a state burial in Ennis. Another member of the rescue crew entered a competition on Clare FM a short time after to win a headstone. The competition called for people to write their own epitaph. He wrote one for the unidentified man and won. “All you people of Co. Clare, kneel down here and say a prayer, for the man from God knows where”. Very sad to think that there is no name on that headstone.
That made me go cold. What a lovely thing to do for someone and a lovely epitaph.Unclaimed bodies always make me feel so terribly sad, lost souls,some never missed and others never found.
With technology and communication being so advanced it is hard to believe this persons family or friends can not be located ..very sad story ..
Great and sensitive article.
another massive Fail for the Irish State – We are good at failure.
Hardly a fail.sure she cud have come from anywhere
Thats the sad thing about stories like this, maybe no family to miss her! Like the lady who’s body was found in the sea in clontarff I dont think she was even identified never mind been missed! We all take it so much for granted that everyone has family! Cherish yours everyday♡♡
A pretty epic fail really by forensic standards. No dental xrays,no chance of facial reconstrustion. Plus its just bad form to loose a part of someone,how’d you even do that its not exactly a set if keys!
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