Families confront horror after 11 babies die in Senegal fire

TIVAOUANE, SENEGAL • Three weeks ago, Ramata Gueye died after giving birth to a son, Mohamed, seven months into her pregnancy. On Thursday, her bereaved husband El Hadj Gueye learned that Mohamed was one of 11 babies killed by a fire in a hospital neonatal ward.

The couple had been trying for a baby for seven years, said Moustapha Cisse, a cousin of the father, who was among distraught family members of the dead infants gathered in front of the hospital in the Senegalese town of Tivaouane.

“It is heartbreaking to see him lose his wife and now his child,” said Cisse. “I can’t even look him in the eyes. If he had other children, maybe, but it was his only child.”

A short circuit caused the fire late on Wednesday and it spread in less than five minutes, Tivaouane Mayor Diop Sy said on RFM radio. He said two nurses who escaped had not been able to save the babies in their incubators, all of whom died.

With the government facing mounting criticism over the latest in a series of deadly hospital incidents, President Macky Sall sacked his health minister, Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr.

The decree announcing the sacking, read on national television, did not specify a reason for the president’s decision.