An overnight fire raced through a dor­mi­to­ry in Guyana, killing at least 19 stu­dents who were trapped and in­jur­ing sev­er­al oth­ers at a gov­ern­ment board­ing school as au­thor­i­ties probe whether it was in­ten­tion­al­ly set. All but one of the vic­tims were In­dige­nous girls, of­fi­cials said Mon­day.

“This is a hor­rif­ic in­ci­dent. It’s trag­ic. It’s painful,” Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali said, adding that his gov­ern­ment was mo­bi­liz­ing all pos­si­ble re­sources as he re­quest­ed help from the re­gion to iden­ti­fy the re­mains of 13 bod­ies.

The fire broke out at about 10:50 p.m. Sun­day in the dor­mi­to­ry build­ing of a sec­ondary school that serves re­mote, most­ly In­dige­nous vil­lages and is lo­cat­ed in the bor­der town of Mah­dia, a gold and di­a­mond min­ing com­mu­ni­ty about 200 miles (320 kilo­me­ters) south of the cap­i­tal, George­town, the gov­ern­ment said in a state­ment.

Deputy Fire Chief Dwayne Scot­land said “the fire was ma­li­cious­ly set” and be­gan in the build­ing’s south­west cor­ner. How­ev­er, Po­lice Chief Clifton Hick­en said “ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions sug­gest that it was ma­li­cious­ly set.” He al­so said that while the girls’ dorm had five doors, iron grill work trapped the stu­dents in­side.

Au­thor­i­ties did not pro­vide fur­ther de­tails and did not share what ev­i­dence, if any, points to ar­son.

“This is the sad­dest day of my life as pres­i­dent. I wish it had not oc­curred,” Ali said.

A to­tal of 59 girls usu­al­ly re­side in the dorm, but on­ly 56 were in the rooms when the fire be­gan be­cause three of them went home for the week­end. Thir­teen girls and a small boy died at the dorm, while five died at Mah­dia Hos­pi­tal, the gov­ern­ment said.

Of those in­jured, six chil­dren were flown to George­town and 17 re­main hos­pi­tal­ized in Mah­dia, of­fi­cials said.

Of­fi­cials ini­tial­ly said 20 stu­dents were killed but lat­er up­dat­ed the toll to 19, with sev­er­al oth­ers in­jured. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vis­er Ger­ald Gou­veia said the fig­ure was re­vised af­ter doc­tors re­vived a very crit­i­cal pa­tient that “every­one thought was dead.”

“When fire­fight­ers ar­rived on the scene, the build­ing was al­ready com­plete­ly en­gulfed in flames,” Guyana’s Fire Ser­vice said in a state­ment. “Our heart­felt sym­pa­thy goes out to the rel­a­tives and friends of those young souls.”

Of­fi­cials said two chil­dren re­main in crit­i­cal con­di­tion and four have se­vere in­juries.

“Fire­fight­ers did man­age to res­cue some 20 stu­dents by break­ing holes in the north­east­ern wall of the build­ing,” the de­part­ment said.

The school serves most­ly In­dige­nous chil­dren aged 12 through 18, Gou­veia said. He said it was too ear­ly to spec­u­late what might have caused the fire, adding that heavy thun­der­storms in the area posed a chal­lenge to those re­spond­ing by air.

“It was a bat­tle for us,” he said. “The pi­lots were very brave, very de­ter­mined.”

He added that the gov­ern­ment and emer­gency re­spon­ders “made a gi­gan­tic ef­fort” to save as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble.

Ali said of­fi­cials were con­tact­ing par­ents and mo­bi­liz­ing psy­chol­o­gists to help those af­fect­ed by the fire.

“I can­not imag­ine the pain right now of the par­ents,” he said. “This is a ma­jor dis­as­ter.”

The op­po­si­tion par­ty, AP­NU+AFC, is­sued a state­ment say­ing it will seek a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion and thanked peo­ple in the small com­mu­ni­ty for help­ing au­thor­i­ties res­cue chil­dren who were trapped.

“We need to un­der­stand how this most hor­rif­ic and dead­ly in­ci­dent oc­curred and take all nec­es­sary mea­sures to pre­vent such a tragedy from hap­pen­ing again in the fu­ture,” op­po­si­tion law­mak­er Natasha Singh-Lewis said.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana (AP) —