Locked inside: Grief and anger as Pakistan hospital fire kills 14 newborns

Published On 26 Aug 202626 Aug 2026.

What happened

Islamabad, Pakistan – It was 6: 30am on Wednesday when Arif Rana, 46, woke to a phone call. He had been asleep on the lawn outside the maternity unit of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad's largest public-sector hospital.

"My sister offered birth to a baby girl on Tuesday, and she was admitted in the general ward of the hospital. The call came from her husband's sister. This person was attending to my sister, yelling and asking me to come up as a fire had erupted inside the ward, " he informed Al Jazeera.

The bottom line

In short, locked inside: Grief and anger as Pakistan hospital fire kills 14 newborns is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.