Nine Minutes in the Fire, Eight Years For the First Light
Six Guatemalan officials have now been convicted of locking dozens of girls in their cell as a fire consumed them. For eight years, the Hogar Seguro children’s home fire has symbolized a country failing to care for its girls.
Dacia Ramírez, 42, mother of Achly Gabriela Méndez Ramírez who was killed during the fire at Hogar Seguro, held her daughter’s favorite dress in her home in Jutiapa, Guatemala on August 3, 2025.
The memorial altar for the girls killed at Hogar Seguro, squarely in front of the National Palace of Culture at the Constitutional Plaza in Guatemala City, had been defaced 19 times by the day of the sentencing of six public officials for the crime.
“When I woke up from my coma, I realized it was my birthday,” recalled Elba. When Elba awoke, she was filled with anger and promised Ashely that she would never stop pursuing justice. “She was more than my friend, she was my sister,” she said.
Even as the girls yelled to be released, the doors of the dorm remained locked. From outside, Elba heard a voice say, “Let those hijas de la gran puta” —roughly, daughters of bitches— “burn.” Let’s see if they’re as good at getting out of there as they are at running away.”
Luis Fernando Ruiz Ramirez, left, the lawyer for Luis Armando Perez Borja. Next to him is Carlos Rodas, the former Secretary of Social Welfare, as the two men listen to the final statement of a survivor.
Organizers of Colectiva Plaza del Las Niñas and volunteers, in show of support for the survivors of Hogar Seguro, hung banners and put up wheat pastes along Sixth Avenue, Guatemala City’s primary pedestrian street cutting through the historic downtown district, on July 5, 2025.
Only days before her death, Achly had told her mother Dacia that she had written her a letter, but it was taken into evidence by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has refused to release it.
It took hours for the judge to narrate the timeline constructed by the court and left much of the audience in tears as the graphic scene of the fire was described. One testimony recounted how, as the flames began to take hold on the facility, a woman police officer yelled “let them burn” from outside the locked doors. Late into the afternoon, Judge Cifuentes read out the sentencing.
After the sentencing, the sun set on families and supporters gathered at the Plaza of the Girls for a memorial. Candles of white, yellow, ruby red, and purple-black wax —the four colors of corn at the heart of Maya cosmovision— were offered into the fire at the center of the freshly fixed-up altar in front of the presidential palace.
Carmen Urías, the mother of Mayra Haydeé Chután Urías, was among those grieving. “For all the girls they killed and burned, the sentencing was not enough,” she said. “It should have been 50 years for each girl lost.”
“We are their voice now. They are no longer here, but we are,” one survivor told the court. Remote and concealed declarations were allowed to be submitted to safeguard the survivors.
A modest crowd announced in unison, “Here with us” with the enunciation of each of the 41 names. New crosses for the girls were laid out and the once-cracked plaque commemorating their lives was sealed over the flames.
It took eight grueling years for Guatemala’s Supreme Court of Justice to place charges on those accused in the 2017 tragedy at the shelter home Hogar Seguro where 41 young girls were killed after being locked in a dorm room fire. The facility’s name rings like a cruel joke: “Safe Home.”
The morning of the sentencing, this past August, the courtroom was filled to capacity with journalists, international observers, family members and many of the 15 survivors. The air heavy and hot, they sank into their plastic seats or clung to what wall space was left, painted in pale yellow from the windows’ tint. The few fans in the room were turned on minutes at a time because their jet-loud motors drowned out the voices in court. One man in the audience yelled for the judge to speak louder and was threatened to be kicked out.
One survivor, Elba Alina Contreras Exjotop, had been to many sessions before. She anticipated the cameras and all the extra eyes in the courtroom that day. She was wearing gloves covering her now-healed hands, a teal hoodie pulled tight over her head, oversized dark sunglasses. She spent time choosing where to sit, nervously whispering with other survivors and family members. She settled on the center of the first row.
Proceedings started with Judge Ingrid Cifuentes describing the events leading to the fire on March 8, 2017. It took hours for the judge to narrate the timeline constructed by the court and left much of the audience in tears as the graphic scene of the fire was described. One testimony recounted how, as the flames began to take hold on the facility, a woman police officer yelled “let them burn” from outside the locked doors. Late into the afternoon, Judge Cifuentes read out the sentencing.
On August 12, 2025 six former officials were sentenced to between six years to two decades in prison for child abuse, dereliction of duty, abuse of authority, and manslaughter. They include the then-director of Hogar Seguro, a Secretary of Social Welfare, the Defender of the Rights of Children at the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, and a National Civil Police deputy commissioner found guilty of ordering his men into the facility in the lead-up to the crime.
The court ordered the Public Prosecutor’s Office to now expand its investigation to include the notoriously corrupt then-president Jimmy Morales, on allegations ventilated on trial that he exchanged calls with those responsible and ordered the police to remain inside Hogar Seguro because the girls, along with the boys in the home, had tried to escape the day before the fire.
Time has changed the lives of the young women who survived, the lives of the families of the 41 girls lost, and of those who’ve decided to keep their memories alive. The sentencing was a milestone for some, for one survivor a chance to keep a promise to seek justice, and for others just the beginning of their fight.
As for those condemned, they have appealed the verdict and, in the meantime, have yet to spend a day in prison.
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