Authorities in Kyrgyzstan declared August 29 a day of mourning for 14 citizens of the country killed in a blaze at warehouse in Moscow over the weekend.
At least 17 people died in total as a result of the fire caused by a short circuit at the Pechatny Express printing house on Altufevo Shosse in Moscow.
The tragedy has provoked much shock inside Kyrgyzstan, where people are once again reflecting on the high price paid by people forced by economic hardship to work in dangerous conditions abroad.
Most of those killed were women, many of them in their late teens. One was reportedly pregnant. Witnesses said how people trapped in their building cried for help as the flames spread.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that exits out of the warehouse were blocked and that during the fire, rescue workers had to smash an entrance through the wall.
But some witnesses have criticized rescue workers, accusing them of failing to act promptly. One Kyrgyz woman interviewed by Russian television station REN Tv said that firefighters made no real effort to put out the blaze or assist people trapped in the building.
It is the same woman’s closing words that have generated most clamor inside Kyrgyzstan, however, directed as they were at the government.
“I want to talk to our corrupt leaders. If our country was normal, we would not even have had to come here, we would have worked at home. You’re idiots, you know!” she sobbed, her voice broken with anger.
Kyrgyzstan was quick in organizing assistance for relatives of the victims of the fire. A government task force to deal with the fallout of the tragedy has been headed by deputy prime minister Gulmira Kudauberdiyeva.
Critics of the government have seized on the fire to mount fresh broadsides at President Almazbek Atambayev. Edil Baisalov, a former deputy minister of social affairs, accused Atambayev of being interested only in acquiring more power.
“He hastily joined the [Eurasian Economic Union] and so we have spent the last few years on this misguided and empty road map. And so? The girls that died in Moscow had legal documents? What a success! Thank you, Almazbek Sharshenovich, for legalizing the enslavement of our people,” Baisalov wrote on his Facebook account.
The closing comments of the woman in the REN Tv report — “You’re idiots, you know!” — have been adopted in their original Russian as a hashtag, #придурки_знайте, that has been used on social media to discuss themes uncovered by the deaths in Moscow. Some are blaming the Kyrgyz government, others reflect philosophically that there is no preventing such evens.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, has offered his assurances that there will be a thorough investigation and that those found responsible for the fire would be brought to justice.
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