“We found them hugged”: two children killed in a traffic fire

During the morning of this Monday, Two children lost their lives in the Buenos Aires town of Garín after the house where they were found caught fire. The victims were brothers and were 1 and 4 years old. In addition, the uncle of the minors and a neighbor were injured by burns, while another minor was poisoned by inhaling smoke.

According to the sources of the operation, The accident occurred around 10:00 a.m. in a house on 18 de Julio street at 1000 in the Galdi neighborhood of the town of Escobar. The building had a wide front, next to which a series of rooms that were rented by three families were built. In one of them the victims lived with their mother. According to the local media Escobar’s Daythe minors were identified as Juan Bautista and María.

Tragedy in Mendoza: three children died after the fire and collapse of their house

The first information indicated that The flames originated from the short circuit of an electric stove.. Three crews from the local fire station, police personnel, Community Prevention and SAME attended the scene. Before the authorities arrived, the neighbors tried to put out the fire by throwing buckets of water and rescue the minors.

Part of the structure was destroyed by fire. While controlling the flames, firefighters, who had to break down a wall to get into the room, I found the completely burned bodies of the children.. “When we entered, we thought that the boys were not there. Because there was all the smoke and they were not seen. Later we did find them. They were both hiding, hugging“said Brenda, one of the neighbors who was present during the event.

Police sources told Escobar’s Day que the brothers found themselves in the care of Cristián, their 24-year-old uncle. According to the authorities, the young man stated “that he was sleeping when he saw the fire in the house and presumes that the fire source started due to the malfunction of a stove, spreading the fire through the curtains and the rest of the home.”

In the event, the Escobar 3rd police station, based in Garín, intervened, where a summary was issued by “investigation of causes of death”. The boys’ mother, who arrived minutes after the fact, was taken to the Garín police station, while her brother had to be treated for burns.

Abandonment of minors and sale of drugs: the story of the neighbors

Neighbors in the area They accused the mother of the minors of abandoning the children. On this occasion, according to what they said, the woman would have gone dancing with a friend at General Rodríguez on Saturday night, returning minutes after the fire. In addition, she mentions that “the children were alone” and that “the uncle was alone for an occasional circumstance.”

Regarding the uncle, Sergio, another neighbor who entered the house trying to save the children, commented that when he saw him “I didn’t know if I was shocked or drugged”. “It seems that he saw the fire and left the house. Then he did not go back in,” the man said. “We went in and the bed where the boys were was all burned, there were only the springs, so we imagined that they were not there,” continued his story.

For her part, Brenda accused the boys’ mother of consuming and selling drugs. In addition, he said that the father was not present in the lives of the children and that he also had problems with drugs. “She said that she sold drugs to feed the boys. But the children came to ask me for bread at the door. Every time the girl came to play with my little niece, she asked me for bread and cookies,” the woman said.

In addition to this, he explained that the grandparents of the minors “were doing the papers” to obtain custody of the children because of the poor conditions in which they lived. In this sense, she recounted that, for example, one of the children “was in a honeycomb in the street, with the cold.” In this regard, María, another neighbor, maintained that “For two years we have been making complaints because the boys were alone. But they didn’t do anything.”

Likewise, Brenda stated that the mother of the victims “He left and left the boys locked in the room” before leaving with her friend. For this reason, according to the woman, the uncle could not rescue them, since he could not access the room where they were. “How could the brother save them? That’s why the neighbors broke down the outside walls to get the boys out. The same neighbors said that the door was locked because they wanted to enter and could not“, accurate.