"GUATEMALA CITY – When firefighters entered the home for troubled youth, they discovered more than two dozen girls on the floor of a locked room, most of them dead.
A moan rose from one of the bodies, piled on top of each other. When firefighter Danial Perpuac turned the girl over, flames came out of her mouth — she was burning up inside.
"That is something you cannot forget," Perpuac said helplessly. "I know I will have the smell of grilled meat and hair in my nose and throat for life."
The fire on March 8 that killed 40 girls at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home started when ringleaders took a match to a foam mattress to protest the abuse they had suffered there. Their hell at the government-run shelter began long before the inferno, as documented in several warnings from four different agencies. At least two orders for closure were ignored.
The Virgen de la Asunción home is on a hill 14 miles east of Guatemala City. The shelter, protected by high walls and barbed wire, is surrounded by an idyllic pine forest covered with mist every morning. The forest and ravines have offered hiding places for more than 100 children who have escaped what they consider a jail.
About 700 children — nobody knew exactly how many — lived in a home with a maximum capacity for 500. Some dormitories housed more than twice the number of children authorized for the space.
About 700 children — nobody knew exactly how many — lived in a home with a maximum capacity for 500. Some dormitories housed more than twice the number of children authorized for the space.
The majority had committed no crime. They were youths sent there by the courts for various reasons — they had run away from home, they were left in the streets, they were abused, they were young migrants. Most came from families so poor they could not afford the $50 in lawyers' fees to get their children out.
She fled from her own house in August to escape the extortion demands by a gang that had been threatening her with rape for a year. On Aug. 13, she told her mother she had had found a job and would be home late. Instead, she ran away to protect herself and her family.
"She hugged me tight that day, tighter than normal," her mother said.
The mother reported her missing daughter to police. On Aug. 22, they located the girl, and a youth court sent her to Virgen de la Asunción. Officials separated mother and daughter as they cried.
"Mama, get me out of here," the girl begged, according to her mother.
The shelter did not have a procedure for visits, and they did not see each other for a month. By the time of a hearing on Sept. 13, the girl had been beaten, forced to get a tattoo with the name of a female staffer, and repeatedly raped, her mother said.
The first time, the female staff called her in for a physical exam and sedated her. She woke up and her whole body hurt, and she realized what they had done, according to the case file..."
