When a deadly fire killed 15 schoolgirls in Makkah
The tragedy was a tipping point between Saudis and the religious police, who were accused of hindering rescue efforts
the tearoom. It quickly spread, the girls panicked and rushed toward a narrow stairwell in the three-story building, where the majority of the deaths occurred as a staircase collapsed. Fifteen girls died in the tragedy and more than 50 were injured. The ill-equipped rented property was overcrowded, with more than
800 pupils and about 50 teachers. The inquiry found that the school lacked fire extinguishers, alarms, and emergency stairs and exits. Furthermore, the windows, as in all girls’ schools, were covered with iron grilles and could not be opened. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
Many other factors contributed to the horrible incident. According to witnesses, the main gate of the building was locked by the male guard, who was away at the moment the fire started. Firefighters reached the school, only to find that members of the religious police — who usually roamed outside girls’ schools to make sure that the girls and female staff were properly dressed and covered when arriving and leaving — were preventing anyone from fleeing or entering because the girls were uncovered. Precious time went by as girls suffocated, screamed for help and trampled over each other before the regular police were able to intervene and allow the firefighters to enter.
The residential buildingturned-school had been rented since 1990 and, like all such buildings, was not suitable for use as a school. The General Presidency for Girls’ Education rented the buildings that housed most girls’ schools at that time. Most of the buildings had small rooms, few bathrooms, narrow staircases, small, dusty playgrounds and no proper science labs, enough computers or art classes. Most importantly, they lacked safety measures. Unfortunately, rented buildings are still being used for schools to this day, although the numbers have decreased in recent years, and better evaluation and monitoring of their facilities is applied.
This tragic story brought attention to corruption, neglect,
HOW WE WROTE IT
SUMMARY
On March 11, 2002, 15 young women lost their lives in a fire at their school in Makkah when members of the religious police prevented Civil Defense officers from entering and stopped pupils from fleeing the building because the girls weren’t wearing abayas or headscarves.
The tragedy, which shocked the country and the wider Islamic world, was a tipping point in the relationship between the state and citizens of Saudi Arabia and the religious police, aka the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
dilapidated facilities and the religious establishment in rare public criticism in the local media. Consequently, the government decided to dismantle the General Presidency for Girls’ Education — an autonomous government agency created when girls’ schools first opened in 1960 — and place responsibility for the administration of girls’ schools with the Ministry of Education, which also managed boys’ schools.
The religious police were, for so long, a feared presence in public places, not necessarily because they were “promoting virtue and preventing vice” as they saw it, but mostly because of their harassment, physical abuse and arbitrary arrests, especially of women for such trivial matters as not covering the face or not wearing the proper abaya. Even