A fire at a maternity ward in Islamabad, Pakistan, killed 14 infants on Wednesday after thick black smoke engulfed the facility, according to Pakistani authorities and AFP.
The blaze broke out shortly before 7am local time on the third floor of the Mother and Child Health Ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), the capital’s leading public hospital.
Authorities said a faulty air-conditioning unit was responsible for the fire. PIMS spokeswoman Aneeza Jalil told AFP that the blaze started when an electrical fault sparked from an air conditioner.
The deaths have triggered grief and anger among families, with witnesses describing chaotic scenes as smoke filled the ward and patients struggled to escape.
Khurram Mehmood, 40, told AFP that his three-day-old daughter died in the fire. He said rescuers took hours to arrive while families waited outside for assistance.
Another witness, Jaweria, said the door to the neonatal intensive care unit was locked during the blaze.
“I do not believe this. Give me my child back… Why did the doctors leave the children there?” she said.
Witness Abdul Ghafoor said the fire spread rapidly and that babies as young as one day old were inside the ward.
“There was thick black smoke inside, and patients were trapped,” he told AFP, adding that rescue teams arrived almost two hours after the fire began.
However, Islamabad Chief Commissioner Sohail Ashraf said an emergency call was made just before 7am and that rescue and police teams reached the scene immediately before bringing the fire under control.
Another witness alleged that hospital security personnel prevented people from leaving.
“People had to break the door down and rescue teams had to break the windows to control the fire,” she said.
‘Ran For Our Lives’
AFP reporters saw families gathered outside the hospital as a nurse called out the names of babies who had died.
Other patients emerged covered in soot, while one man carried a newborn in his arms.
Shagufta Parveen, a mother whose 10-day-old baby survived, said there was panic as smoke spread through the ward.
“People were screaming. There was black smoke. We ran for our lives,” she told AFP.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi expressed grief over the deaths.
Sharif ordered a thorough review of the circumstances surrounding the fire, calling for those responsible to be identified and the strictest possible action to be taken.
The tragedy comes amid longstanding concerns about fire safety in Pakistan, where deadly fires have frequently been linked to inadequate safety measures, building-code violations and weak enforcement.
AFP reported that more than 65 people were killed in a shopping centre fire in Karachi in January, while at least 11 people died in another Karachi shopping mall fire in 2023.
The latest incident has renewed scrutiny of safety standards in major public buildings, particularly healthcare facilities where patients, including newborns, may be unable to evacuate without assistance.
