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A fire that tore through a maternity ward at one of Islamabad's largest state-run hospitals has killed 14 newborn babies, with grieving parents accusing staff and rescuers of failing to act as the infants perished. The blaze broke out shortly after dawn on Wednesday on the third floor of the mother and child unit at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), igniting inside an air-conditioning unit. Of the 15 infants in the ward at the time, only one survived.
Among those who escaped was Hivsa Walid, who was near the room visiting her sister-in-law, who had given birth days earlier. She recalled first hearing a shout and assuming a patient had passed away, until smoke came into view. Carrying the unnamed baby girl, the two women fled downstairs along with other panicked relatives. Walid said some patients had delivered their babies only hours earlier, and described the evacuation itself as a disorienting blur in which no one stopped for their belongings.
Parents who lost children described agonizing waits for help that never seemed to come. Khurram Mehmood, 40, told AFP he had lost his three-day-old daughter after a long delay before rescuers appeared. Another mother, Jaweria, said the door to the maternity ward had been shut fast while the fire spread. "For two hours I kept crying and wailing," she told AFP, adding that police did not arrive until four hours after the blaze began, saying they were there to investigate. She asked why doctors had left the children behind, directing bitter anger at both the rescue teams and police.
Hospital officials have pushed back against claims that the ward was sealed. Rana Imran Sikander, PIMS's executive director, told the BBC that the door was not locked but rather kept under supervision, explaining that staff restrict access to protect infants from theft, a problem he said has occurred previously at government hospitals in Pakistan.
Other witnesses painted a picture of systemic neglect. One father who had visited the ward for eight days before his baby died told Reuters the building had no fire security measures or proper emergency exits, and that all doors except a single visitor entrance were routinely locked to limit how often families could see their children. Multiple people said duty staff were nowhere to be found when the flames erupted. According to AFP, one witness said people had to break the door down, while firefighters resorted to shattering windows to bring the fire under control.
Abdul Ghafoor, another witness, said he attempted to enter the burning building to pull patients to safety but could not reach the maternity ward because of thick black smoke filling the corridors, with patients trapped inside. He estimated that rescue teams took nearly two hours to arrive. That account directly contradicts the version offered by Islamabad's Chief Commissioner Sohail Ashraf, who insisted that crews reached the scene immediately after the first emergency call, according to AFP.
PIMS is among the biggest hospitals in Pakistan's capital, and its maternal and child health unit holds 156 beds. The disaster is the latest in a series of deadly blazes that have plagued the country, where weak safety legislation, inadequate building codes, and poor enforcement are frequently blamed for high death tolls. In January, survivors of a Karachi shopping mall fire that killed dozens said locked exits likely worsened the casualties.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed deep sorrow over the tragedy and ordered an immediate investigation, according to a statement from his office. The government has also suspended Aslam Ghauri, the federal health secretary. Calling what happened to the children irreparable, the statement underscored the scale of national outrage over a fire that claimed the youngest and most vulnerable victims imaginable.
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