Arrests made in Mexico deadly daycare fire

SONORA, Mexico, June 23 (UPI) -- Nine officials are facing charges and nine more are being sought in the daycare center fire that has left 47 children dead in northern Mexico, authorities say.

The seven state and two federal officials were arrested Monday, the Los Angles Times reported.

Most of the suspects in custody and at large worked for the Sonora state Finance Department, which operated an adjacent warehouse where investigators say the June 5 blaze may have been started by an electrical short circuit or overheating.

Two employees of the ABC daycare in Hermosillo also were among those arrested three others were being sought.

The daycare, which took care of about 200 children each day, was a firetrap despite being inspected repeatedly, critics told The New York Times. They say that negligence and incompetence -- a routine occurrence in Mexico -- contributed to the high death toll.

"In this country, we have a whole package of justifications not to follow the law," political analyst Jesus Silva-Herzog Marquez said. "There is an idea that the law is an imposition from outside. By going outside the law, we find a kind of fraternity."

Roberto Zavala, the father of a 2-year-old boy who was among the victims, has marched with other victims' families in an attempt to force the government to respond adequately to what happened.

"Nobody has accepted their share of the blame," said Zavala, a worker at Hermosillo's Ford plant. "I am to blame for trusting, I am to blame for paying my taxes, I am to blame for voting, I am responsible for the death of my son. They make fun of us. I am to blame for allowing them."