15 killed in fire at Haitian facility
Second home run by religious group raided
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A fire swept through a Haitian children’s home run by a Pennsylvania-based religious nonprofit group, killing 15 children, officials said Friday.
Rose-marie Louis, a child care worker at the home, told The Associated Press that the fire began at around 9 p.m. Thursday and firefighters took about 90 minutes to arrive.
The home had been using candles for light due to problems with its generator and inverter, she said.
About half of those who died were babies or toddlers and the others were roughly 10 or 11 years old, Louis said.
Late Friday afternoon, police raided another home also run by the Church of Bible Understanding and took away several dozen children in a bus over protests from employees.
The fire happened at the group’s facility in the Kenscoff area outside Port-au-prince, the Haitian capital.
Rescue workers arrived at the scene on motorcycles and didn’t have bottled oxygen or the ambulances needed to transport the children to the hospital, according to Jean-francois Robenty, a civil protection official.
“They could have been saved,” he said. “We didn’t have the equipment to save their lives.”
The Church of Bible Understanding lost accreditation for its homes after a series of inspections beginning in November 2012. Haitian inspectors faulted the group for overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and not having enough adequately trained staff.
Members of the religious group were selling expensive vintage building fixtures like banisters and chandeliers at high-end stores in New York and Los Angeles and using a portion of the profits to fund the homes.
“We are aware of the fire in the children’s home in Haiti,” said Temi J. Sacks, a spokesman for the group, which is based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. “It would be irresponsible for us to comment until after all the facts are in.”
The Church of Bible Understanding identifies the homes as orphanages, but it is common in Haiti for impoverished parents to place children in residential care centers, where they receive lodging and widely varying education for several years but are not technically orphans.