2002 Mecca Girls' School Fire - Fire and Controversy

Fire and Controversy

According to Saudi press reports the blaze at Makkah Intermediate School No. 31 started at about 8am. The blaze began in a room on the top floor, apparently caused by an unattended cigarette.

As a result of the fire and ensuing rush to escape, 15 young girls died, and more than 50 were injured. Nine of the dead girls were Saudis; the rest were from Chad, Egypt, Guinea, Niger, and Nigeria. The majority of the deaths occurred when a staircase collapsed as the girls fled the building. The residential property upon which the school was built, being overcrowded with 800 pupils, was very unsuitable. In addition, the building may have lacked proper safety infrastructure and equipment, such as fire stairs and alarms.

According to at least two reports, members of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), also known as Mutaween, would not allow the girls to escape or to be saved from the fire because they were "not properly covered", and the mutaween did not want physical contact to take place between the girls and the civil defense forces for fear of sexual enticement, and variously that the girls were locked in by the police, or forced back into the building. Civil Defense stated that the fire had extinguished itself before they arrived on the scene. CPVPV officers did appear to object to Civil Defense workers going into the building - Human Rights Watch quoted a Civil Defense officer as saying,

"Whenever the girls got out through the main gate, these people forced them to return via another. Instead of extending a helping hand for the rescue work, they were using their hands to beat us."

The CPVPV denied the charges of beating or locking the gates but the incident and the accounts of witnesses were reported in Saudi newspapers such as the Saudi Gazette and Al-Iqtisaddiyya. The result was a very rare public criticism of the group.

Also criticized was the General Presidency for Girls' Education (GPGE), "an autonomous government agency long controlled by conservative clerics", that administers girls' schools in Saudi Arabia.