Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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The price of negligence?

By Mariz Tadros

A little after 2pm, Soheir Ismail set out from Imbaba to collect her daughters from the Qawmeiya co-ed primary school in Zamalek. It was a familiar journey, one that Soheir made almost every day. Only, when she arrived on Thursday, neither of her two children was waiting.

"I could not find my daughters so I went up to the administration and they told me that Nada, the elder, was at the Agouza Hospital. They said they had no idea about the whereabouts of Noha, who is six. I became hysterical when one of her friends told me the last time she saw Noha was under the rubble."

Her story mirrors that of many of the shocked parents whose children were involved in the tragedy that took four lives and left 14 injured.

A special committee comprising investigators from the ministries of education, justice and housing was formed immediately following the collapse of the school's perimeter wall. Commissioned with discovering why the wall collapsed, the committee had not even begun its work when it was leaked to the press that the file of the school building, indeed the files of all schools built before 1986, were missing.

Despite the embarrassment caused by this disclosure, the minister of education, Hussein Kamal Bahieddin, has vehemently denied allegations that maintenance of the wall had been neglected. To support his case he pointed to the findings of the General Building Authority -- affiliated to the Ministry of Education -- after the wall was examined last September. Then, the Authority found the wall stable. It had not, subsequently, received any complaints about the safety of the school premises.

Results of investigations led by the Ministry of Housing have yet to be disclosed, but rumours abound that the fence was shoddily constructed in the first place. School employees have said that the 1992 earthquake had precipitated the collapse of a part of the wall. In an earlier statement, however, Bahaeddin, conceding that the school had been affected by the earthquake, insisted it had been repaired and was in good condition.

At the beginning of the week, in response to the tragedy, the minister announced that a comprehensive national plan to assess the safety of all old schools in the country would be carried out within a period of six months. Walls that are defective will be pulled down and an insurance plan for all walls and stairs is to be instigated. Bahaeddin also promised that families of each deceased child would receive LE3,000, and the families of each injured child LE500 as compensation.

Meanwhile, on Thursday Soheir rushed from Agouza Hospital, where Nada had just received treatment for a fractured pelvis, to Kasr Al-Aini, half hoping she would not find her other daughter there. But she did. Noha was in a coma, in critical condition.

"The school administration had told me there was one girl at Qasr Al-Aini but they didn't know who she was," Soheir said bitterly.

But the horror, according to Soheir, did not end there: "You cannot imagine the kind of treatment we got at the old Kasr El-Aini University Hospital. The blood was not wiped off her face and she was bitten by mosquitoes everywhere."

Soheir alleges that her daughter was removed from intensive care, though she was still in critical condition, because space had to be made for other patients.

"They hesitated about moving Noha for a while because they heard rumours that the minister was visiting, but when they realised he was not, they did not bother anymore," continued Soheir. Finally, she transferred her daughter to the intensive care unit at Agouza Hospital where she has been happy with the treatment, especially since the minister of education's visit.

Noha is slowly recovering, according to doctors, but remains in a state of trauma and often cries out for her mother. Meanwhile, her mother is at once angry and despairing. Her daughter was born with a slight paralysis to her left arm and leg, and consequently is only able to move slowly. "When I enrolled my daughter in this school, I explained her condition to the staff... Yet I cannot get the picture out of my mind of Noha sitting on the bench, eating her sandwiches, when the wall suddenly collapses and she is unable to get out of the way quickly enough."

According to Dr Emad Abdel-Raouf of the intensive care unit, some of the children brought in were in a very serious condition. One suffered from a rib fracture that had caused haemorrhaging while two others were concussed and exhibiting signs of trauma.

Mohamed Sami Ali, a 10-year-old pupil in fourth-grade primary, occupies the bed next to Noha. Following an operation for a ruptured stomach, doctors describe his condition as stable. He clearly remembers well his ordeal: "I was sitting on one of the benches between my cousins Mustafa and Ahmed. Mustafa got a little hurt, Ahmed managed to run in time. The wall fell on me. It happened all of a sudden, I didn't feel anything. I lost consciousness and only woke up at the hospital afterwards."

Mohamed is eager to get out of hospital and get back to school again. He says he misses playing football.

That afternoon, his mother mumbles, the car arrived back from school with all her children except Mohamed. "We were told he had been sent to hospital and we came immediately. He is doing well, but he keeps asking me about his friends, and I don't know what to tell him. Two of them are dead and I just can't bring myself to tell him the truth."

The parents of 10-year-old Mustafa Adel Omar, who suffered head, back and hand injuries, were angry: "As parents we didn't know anything about the condition of the wall. We trusted the school to ensure that the premises were safe before the beginning of term. Many of us, though, feel that things were happening of which we were not made aware."

A mother of another child interrupts: "If they had asked me for a contribution for something like this, I would have not hesitated for a minute to contribute. Had they just asked. None of us would have refused..."

Tarek, a pupil at the same school several years ago, remembers that the benches fixed to the wall were not so strong, and that since he was a child he has no memory of the place ever being upgraded. Many others point to the dilapidated state of a girls' college close to the Qawmeiya school as proof that negligence prevails.

An enraged relative also interrupts: "They did not even bother to call us to tell us our children had been injured and were in hospital."

Salama Ahmed Salama, a leading Al-Ahram columnist, told Al-Ahram Weekly after the disaster: "It seems that the wall was cracked and did not get repaired. Basically, as a government school, nobody really cares because the parents who send their children there are from the poorer classes...[they] have no voice, do not protest and lack the power to demand change."

Salama insisted that the collapse of the school wall should not be viewed as a singular incident but reflects a general atmosphere of negligence and apathy.

"What it illustrates is that the government acts only when a catastrophe, such as the train crash in Kafr Al-Sheikh, or the pupils poisoned by eating school biscuits last year, happens. The catastrophe meets with public outrage, and when that dies down, everything goes back to how it was. There is no accountability, and when they decide to punish someone, they always choose the most junior employees, and never start at the top."

Salama was distressed at some of the parents' readiness to pay donations to the school administration if that is what it takes to fix the fence. It suggests, he said, that it is difficult for the poor to feel that they have rights and the government has certain obligations towards them. It reflects, too, he feels, the belief that the only way to get things done in today's Egypt is through the power of money.

"If this kind of thing had happened at a private school, catering to the children of the wealthy, the world would have stopped."

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