(Kuwait) Three people have been remanded in custody for manslaughter in Kuwait after a fire in a building in the capital which claimed the lives of 50 foreign workers, most of them Indians, and left their loved ones in mourning.
Three Filipinos were also among the dead, officials in Manila said, in the fire which ravaged a six-story building in the suburb of Mangaf, located south of the Kuwaiti capital.
Most of oil-rich Kuwait’s four million residents are foreign nationals. Many come from South and Southeast Asia and work in the construction and service sector.
Dozens of other people were injured in the fire that broke out at dawn on Wednesday on the ground floor of the building housing nearly 200 workers.
Foreign Minister Abdallah al-Yahya told reporters on Thursday that “one of the injured died” overnight. A previous report reported 49 people killed.
“The majority of the dead are Indians,” he said.
Most of the dead and injured were asphyxiated by smoke inhalation after being trapped in the building by the flames, according to a fire service source.
A Kuwaiti and two foreign nationals were detained “on suspicion of manslaughter caused by neglect of safety procedures and fire-fighting rules,” the Kuwaiti attorney general said on X.
On Wednesday, Interior Minister Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef vowed to tackle the problem of overcrowding in buildings housing foreign workers and threatened to close any buildings that do not comply with safety regulations.
Relatives of the victims, who are among millions of Asians working in the Gulf to send money home to their families, were in shock.
“He was a lovely man. He was always very friendly with everyone,” Safedu, a relative of Shameer Umarudheen, 33, from the village of Kollam in India’s southern state of Kerala, who died in the fire, told AFP .
“He did not come from a wealthy family and his departure for Kuwait was a chance for his family to get by,” he added, saying that “the whole village was in mourning.”
Reji Varghese, a friend of Lukose VO, 49, also from Kollam, is finding it difficult to digest the news of the latter’s death.
“I still can’t accept it. We didn’t believe the news when we heard it,” he told AFP, adding that his friend left behind a wife and two daughters.
“I spoke to him last week. Everything was fine. This news is a shock,” he added.
On Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to help those affected by the “terrible tragedy of the fire”, announcing the payment of 200,000 rupees (2,200 euros) to close relatives.
Kirti Vardhan Singh, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, arrived in Kuwait to assist survivors and arrange for the repatriation of the remains on an Indian Air Force plane.
“Some bodies were charred beyond recognition. DNA tests are therefore underway to identify the victims,” he told Indian media.
In Manila, the migrant workers department said three Filipinos died, two others were in critical condition and six others were unhurt.
“We are in contact with the families of all affected workers, including the families of the two people in critical condition and the families of the three people who died,” Hans Leo J. Cacdac, secretary of the Ministry of Migrant Workers, said in a statement.
The fire is one of the most serious in Kuwait, a country bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which has about 7% of the world’s known oil reserves.
In 2009, nearly 60 people died when a Kuwaiti woman set fire to a tent during a wedding party of her husband who had taken another wife.
