Ten families who lost eleven children in the 2023 Mahdia School Dormitory School fire have moved to the court where they have filed a $16.5 billion lawsuit against the state.
In court documents filed families of the 11 children through their attorney Darren Wade are asking the court to declare that the state had breached its duty of care to the children; they are also seeking a declaration that actions and omissions in relation to the injuries sustained by the children constitute a breach of their fundamental rights of right to life and right to protection of the law.
Additionally, the families are asking the court declare that the confinement of their children behind behind locked grills, with the doors and windows padlocked from within, preventing them from leaving the building and leading to their deaths in a fire, constitutes torture, inhumane and degrading punishment, and a violation of fundamental human rights under Article 141 of the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana; and a declaration their deaths were the result of negligence on the part of the state.
The families are claiming more than $500 million for each child who died in the fire; more than $500 million in aggravated damages for emotional and psychological distress caused by the actions and omission of the state and $500 million in exemplary damages for each child in a bid to deter the state from engaging such reckless negligent, and inhumane conduct in the future.
Wade in the document said the Attorney General Anil Nandlall had encouraged the families to sign an agreement indicating that it was part of several initiatives that the Government was offering. The families of the children who died in the fire were paid $5 million each. Twenty children including a five year old boy lost their lives in the fire.