YANGON, Myanmar — A Myanmar court has sentenced two teachers to eight years in prison for negligence that caused a fire in a mosque in downtown Yangon last year, according to police.
Burmese workers clear debris as they a clean up the inside of a burned mosque on April 3, 2013 in Yangon. The deadly fire at the mosque, which happened in the early morning hours on April 2, killed at least 13 children who were sleeping.
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The court ruled on Thursday that the fire was started by an electrical short-circuit, but that the teachers were responsible because they were overseeing the school then.
The fire, which killed 13 Muslim schoolchildren on April 2 of last year, was at the time thought by some in Myanmar to be the latest evidence of sectarian conflict between Muslims and Buddhists. Muslim residents in Yangon feared that the fire was deliberately caused by Buddhist extremists in a work of arson, despite authorities at the time insisting that the blaze was caused by an accidental electrical fault.
The court sentenced the two teachers to six years in prison for causing death by negligence, and two years for negligence in relation to a fire, according to Myanmar police major Myint Htay, who added that their sentences were long because the negligence resulted in death. The two teachers, both Muslim, were arrested shortly after the fire broke out last April, he added.
It is unclear whether the two teachers will appeal their sentences. Efforts to contact lawyers for the pair were unsuccessful.
The downtown mosque, minutes away from offices, hotels and restaurants, was a two-story complex that included a school and a dormitory, housing about 70 children. When the fire broke out, according to state media reports then, students, many of whom were orphans, were sleeping. Most of these students escaped safely, except for the 13 who died of smoke inhalation.
Last year's fire followed bouts of communal conflict in Myanmar, which have pitted majority Buddhists against minority Muslims.
Violent riots last March in Meikhtila, a central town in the country, left more than 40 dead and thousands displaced as entire villages were burnt down, shortly before the fire broke out at this mosque in Yangon.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, some 5, 400 of these people — mostly Muslim — still remain in camps for internally displaced people today, with limited humanitarian assistance because of poor funding.
Tension between Muslims and Buddhists, particularly in Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh, continue to be viewed by the international community as one of the most pressing issues facing reforming Myanmar, and one where diplomats and non-government organizations have urged the Myanmar government to act quickly to punish those responsible for the violence.
Source: http://www.news.myanmaronlinecentre.com/2014/04/26/myanmar-court-sentences-2-teachers-over-fire/
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