Mick Hartley

There was a fire on Saturday at a girls school in Jeddah. Exits were found to be blocked – possibly because the girls remove their abayas once in the building, and must therefore be locked in and isolated from the eyes of the world – so some of those trapped inside the building had to jump from a third-floor window to escape. Two teachers died and a number of girls were treated in hospital. 

The fire was covered by Arab News – mainly in relation to the onlookers. The crowds of spectators got in the way of the emergency services, apparently. Also, controversially, someone filmed the incident, and the resultant YouTube went viral.

What's not mentioned in these articles is the reason why a fire in a girls school might have a particularly unfortunate resonance in Saudi Arabia. In a notorious case in 2002, a fire in a girls school in Mecca resulted in the death of fifteen schoolgirls after the religious police stopped the screaming girls from leaving the building, and prevented rescue workers from doing their job – "it is sinful to approach them" – because the girls were not wearing the correct Islamic dress. 

Though not directly comparable, this latest tragedy does suggest that the same problems remain. Girls are still locked away in their schools, and the religious police – the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice – are as active as ever.