Thirty-one people -- mostly teenage girls -- were killed after a fire tore through a youth home in San Jose Pinula, Guatemala. More stories after the cut...
Wednesday's blaze started when some of the youths at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home set fire to a mattress on their way to breakfast, said Abner David Paredes Cruz, an attorney with the office of Guatemala's human rights prosecutor.
Nineteen
female residents of the home near Guatemala City -- all between 13 and
17 -- died at the scene, the country's National Civil Police told CNN en
Español. Read more after the cut.....
Video from the scene showed sobbing family members outside the home, banging on doors and looking for loved ones.
Twelve
others died at hospitals in Guatemala City, according to information
released by the Guatemalan Ministry of Health. The fire, which began
around 9 a.m. (10 a.m. ET) Wednesday, left 27 others injured.
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales pledged his support to the families
of the victims and to the injured, and said the home's director was
fired. An investigation into the center has been ordered.
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