At least 20 children have died in a fire in a school dormitory in central Guyana, the government announced in a statement released early Monday morning.

“It is with great sadness that we report a heartbreaking update on the Mahdia High School dormitory fire. The death toll now stands at 20, with several injured,” the government reported.

Mahdia is a mining city in the center of Guyana, a small country located in the north of Brazil and which also has borders with Venezuela and Suriname.

“This is a great catastrophe. It is terrible, painful,” said the president, Irfaan Ali.

The president affirmed that the operations are organized so that the two largest hospitals in the capital, Georgetown, receive the wounded who need care.

Several private planes and military ships were sent to Mahdia, which is located 200 kilometers south of Georgetown.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project