Fire and 4 dead in a rehabilitation center in Pilar that was not in order: they arrested the director

Simple homicide with eventual intent is the crime charged to the director of the Pilar rehabilitation center where last February 22 a patient set fire to a mattress and caused his death and that of three other inmates. The place was not enabled and, therefore, since March 9, the person in charge of the therapeutic community has been detained.

The arrest warrant for Alan Emmanuel Cambra Sarife (36) was signed by the Judge of Guarantees No. 6 of Pilar, Nicolás Ceballos, at the request of the UFI Prosecutor No. 3 of Pilar, in charge of the Prosecutor Germán Camafreita.

Infobae had access to the accusation against Cambra Sarife, where it is reported that the tragedy unfolded on February 22, around 10.15, inside the property located in Los Chañares 3.997, in the town of La Lonja, in the north of the Buenos Aires Conurbano, where the” Resilencia Therapeutic Center was located SanFernando”, which on its website is defined as an “addiction rehabilitation center with therapeutic and spiritual approach”.

There, a fire broke out that led to the deaths of Nicolás Ezequiel Bisbal, José Nahuel Castaño, Rodrigo Ariel Moreno and Nicolás Claudio Ortiz. “Leave me here,” the deceased who had set fire to a mattress told those who wanted to rescue him . The other three victims died when they were trapped and intoxicated by smoke.

There were more than 50 young people in treatment in that building, which had not been authorized and which had to be resettled as a matter of urgency.

For the prosecutor Camafreita, Cambra Sarife, “given his education, knowledge, volition and lucidity, the consequence of his actions was represented as possible, and he was indifferent to any occasional victim and the results described.” He spoke of “contempt” and that the “accused did not comply with the minimum safety and hygiene requirements provided for such an organization, such as: fire extinguishers, fire retardant mattresses, contingency plan, qualified therapeutic personnel, doctors and nurses in charge of supplying medication to the patients, access and emergency exits of the establishment, emergency lighting”.

According to the prosecutor, the detainee “did not comply with administrative requirements because he did not have proper legal authorization”: he was not authorized by the Ministry of Health of the Province of Buenos Aires. “Several of the comrades tried to put out the fire, but it was difficult for them because there were no fire extinguishers there,” a witness and resident of the community told the Justice

Another patient told the prosecutor the conditions in which people lived there: “There were no doctors or nurses, I never saw. I've never been checked by a doctor. They called the ambulance if anything happened. There was no fire extinguisher, I never saw. Mattresses were common, made of foam rubber. I started sleeping on the floor... There were newcomers, so there was no bed for everyone. Afterwards, I took the mattress to the cat bath: a place that is an empty toilet, where there used to be cats”.

And a third witness to the fire, who was also interned in the burned place, said: “My family started visiting me a fortnight after I arrived there. They let you go but they put a manager next to you so you don't say anything, so as not to ask to be taken out of there.”

Since the drama occurred in the Resiliencia San Fernando community, the situation of the rehabilitation center in Pilar had been in the sights of Justice. Precisely, at that time, the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM) denounced that there were “conditions of detention and living regime that constitute serious violations of human rights”. Then, they made a presentation and the judge in the case admitted the CPM as a private victim.

The case

The truth is that, according to research sources, that tragic February 22 “the boys were in the middle of a workshop, when one of the patients got up, with a lighter and a cigarette in his hand, and went to the area of the rooms.”

Based on the description of the place that connects the area where the workshop was held and that of the rooms, there is like a curve. “They lost sight of the boy who went to smoke and immediately started a voracious fire in the rooms, where mattresses and bars on the windows prevailed,” they explained.

“Many were locked up on the side of the rooms when the flames started. As he could, the rest tried to rescue them. They broke as many windows as they could but the bars made everything difficult,” said the sources consulted and said that they even reached the young man who had started the flames. “When they wanted to bring him out, he said to them, 'Leave me here, '” they revealed. There were 16 who were saved. Four died.

The same firefighters who put out the flames and who certify this type of centers “reported that they did not have that certificate either,” said the sources consulted.

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