Americas News

ANALYSIS: Mexico's day care centre tragedy linked to politics

By Andrea Sosa Cabrios Jun 9, 2009, 16:36 GMT

Mexico City - Wherever one looks, the tragic fire that claimed the lives of 44 small children last week in northwestern Mexico is spreading its stain on those with political power, even as doctors worked desperately to save the lives of 10 other children who remain in serious condition. The owners of the facility had impeccable credentials, if family connections are any measure. Two of the owners of the facility are married to government officials. One of them, Marcia Gomez del Campo, is a distant relative of Mexico's First Lady Margarita Zavala. A third owner once held political positions. The warehouse adjoining the day care centre, where the fire is believed to have started, was operated by the state of Sonora's Finance Ministry. And the institution for which the day care centre worked is Mexico's main public health organ. 'Indeed, we are related,' Zavala said. 'Although I do not know (Gomez del Campo) personally, I understand that we have a great-grandfather in common.' The wife of Mexican President Felipe Calderon stressed, however, that 'family ties must never be above the law.' Gomez del Campo's family connections spread beyond the president's wife: she is the niece of the wife of Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours, married to the state minister for Infrastructure and Urban Development, and a second cousin to Ernesto Gandara, mayor of Hermosillo, the city where the tragedy happened. The other owners of the ABC day care centre, which had been in operation since 2001, are Francisco Urquides Serrano - former finance secretary of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, which rules the state - and Sandra Lucia Tellez, the wife of the state cattle-farming undersecretary Alfonso Escalante. The fire was caused by an electrical cross-circuit or an overheated air conditioner at the warehouse adjoining the day care centre, which held documents and three vehicles belonging to the vehicle control department of the state Finance Ministry. The warehouse and the children's facility shared a wall. Fire and smoke quickly sneaked across through the roof, which had polyurethane isolation. Nobody noticed the smoke until it was already too late: the polyurethane melted and gave out toxic gases. Questions multiply by the hour, as the succession of events becomes clearer. How could an industrial warehouse space ever be allowed to be used as a day care centre, when it was next to facilities with flammable material including a petrol station and a tyre store, parents and newspaper editorial writers are demanding to know? Who approved a warehouse with a metal-panel and polyurethane roof as a safe place to hold 200 children? How could the emergency exit possibly be sealed from the inside? Where were the smoke detectors? Sonora Attorney General Abel Murrieta vowed that there will not be 'anyone out of reach' of the investigation or given consideration because of 'distinctions of any kind.' Those responsible for the tragedy will be punished, he stressed. Intoxicated and burned children - many of them deformed by burns in over 80 per cent of their bodies - are fighting for their lives in hospital. Devastated parents of dead children hold on to little coffins for as long as they can. In this setting, the cry is unanimous: Why?