8 BURNED ALIVE IN BRAZIL CRECHE
Children, teachers die after guard sprays alcohol, sets them alight
RIO DE JANEIRO
ANURSERY school guard burned six young children and a teacher to death after spraying them with alcohol and setting them alight on Thursday, in an attack which has horrified the nation.
Dozens of people were also hurt in the blaze, while the guard, who was reported to be mentally ill, died after succumbing to his own burn injuries.
The tragedy occurred in a modest quarter of Janauba, a city of 70,000 about 600km north of Belo Horizonte city. The nursery was called “Innocent People”.
The initial death toll of four rose to six when two badly burned kids died.
Janauba’s mayor decreed seven days of mourning. About 50 people were hospitalised with injuries, said Bruno Ataide Santos, director of the local hospital. Hours later, 10 people remained hospitalised in serious condition.
The guard, aged about 50 and identified as Damiao Soares, died hours after the incident, which left him with burns all over his body, Santos said.
About 80 children were in the nursery school when the attack occurred, prompting terrified
CHARLIE WINTER, British think tank researcher parents to rush to the school, where they found one classroom reduced to ashes.
“As the creche is near our house, we heard noise and rushed over,” Nelson de Jesus Silva, the father of one victim, told Globonews TV.
The dead children were aged 4, the G1 news site reported.
Police visited the home of the suspect to try to determine a motive. But police Superintendent Renato Nunes told the website of the Hoje em Dia newspaper that the guard had had mental health problems since 2014.
The guard had worked nights for at least eight years at the nursery school, where he was not directly in contact with the children. AFP