Mexico mourns victims of daycare blaze

Mexico, June 8, 2009 (AFP) – Mexicans on Monday mourned the young victims of a fire that swept through a government daycare center in the north of the country, killing at least 42 people, most of them children under the age of two. About 3,000 people gathered in an auditorium in Hermosillo Sunday to pray for the children who perished in Friday’s blaze at a converted downtown warehouse turned into a care center for scores of mostly poor children. A priest who officiated at the service recalled the acts of one desperate father who frantically tried to aid in the rescue effort by backing his truck into the side of the building to break down its cement walls. The cleric said the man was able to rescue three children, although he failed to find his own child and that they died in the blaze. “Jesus brought him near his children, and now has returned them to the arms of God and the Virgin Mary,” the priest declared at the mass. Late Sunday, the death toll from the daycare braze rose to 42. “The latest report we have puts the number of deceased at 42, with 33 people remaining hospitalized,” Daniel Karam, an official with Mexico’s Social Security administration, told reporters. The cause of the fire was unknown but questions were being raised about safety conditions at the ABC center, and authorities vowed a thorough probe. “This has been a painful tragedy for all Mexicans,” said President Felipe Calderon. “I have…