Senegal Hospital Fire Leaves 11 Newborn Babies Dead

Family members console each other outside the Mame Abdoul Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital, where eleven babies died following an electrical fault, in Tivaouane, Senegal, on May 26, 2022. Seyllou/AFP via Getty Images

A hospital fire has killed 11 newborn babies in a neonatal ward in the Senegalese city of Tivaouane, the West African country’s president announced just before midnight local time on May 25.

“I have just learned with pain and dismay the death of 11 newborns, in the fire that occurred in the neonatal department of the Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital in Tivaouane,” Senegal President Macky Sall wrote on Twitter on May 25. “To their mothers and families, I express my deepest sympathy.”

Visitors stand in front of the Mame Abdoul Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital, where 11 babies died following an electrical fault in Tivaouane, Senegal, on May 26, 2022. Seyllou/AFP via Getty Images

Senegal’s health minister, Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr, told a local TV network that a preliminary investigation revealed that the fire broke out because of “a short circuit” and “spread very quickly” in the ward.

“Three babies were saved,” Tivaouane Mayor Demba Dip reportedly said.

Police and fire services were still at the hospital, Dip said, without providing further details.

Tivaouane, in northwest Senegal, is a holy city for Tijani Muslims and is located about 50 miles from the country’s capital, Dakar. It’s also a transport hub.

The country’s health minister is in Geneva for the World Health Assembly, but said he would cut the trip short and return immediately to Senegal, AFP reported. 

This isn’t the first time that a fire has erupted in a Senegalese hospital this year. In April, a fire similarly broke out at a hospital in Linguere, where four newborns were killed.

The mayor of Linguere cited an electrical fault in an air conditioner in the maternity ward as the cause, AFP reported.

The news agency also reported about an incident in early April in which a pregnant woman died while waiting in vain to receive a Caesarean section.

Her death outside a public hospital in the northwestern town of Louga caused nationwide anger about the state of Senegal’s public health system.

The High Court of Louga sentenced three midwives to six months of suspended imprisonment for “failure to assist a person in danger,” AFP reported. Three other midwives were acquitted.