Was it malice, or homicidal intent, or some kind of accident?

Francisco Goldman provides additional details on the tragedy that resulted in the deaths of forty young women in Guatemala in this weekend's New Yorker (The Story Behind the Fire that Killed Forty Teen-age Girls in a Guatemalan Children's Home).

The complete story about what exactly transpired that night is still somewhat tentative but it appears that the girls were locked in a room as punishment for having fled the night before. In the morning, three girls set mattresses on fire when the guards refused to let them go to the bathroom. The question then become why didn't anyone let the girls out when they knew that they were in dire trouble?

All three girls agree that it was the police who shut them in the room; the monitors only returned from attending to children in the other dorms after the fire started. But it is not yet known who decided to lock them inside, who was in possession of the key that could have saved their lives, and why, when the girls were screaming for help, nobody opened the schoolroom door. Was it malice, or homicidal intent, or some kind of accident? Why were only the girls locked up, while the boys were allowed to return to their quarters? And what, exactly, had been going on at the school that made the girls so desperate to escape?

In a parliamentary system, the prime minister would resign. President Jimmy Morales should consider doing the same.