By Wendy Anders

Tuesday just after midnight, residents near the Los Horcones Bar in Chachagua, San Ramón on the way to La Fortuna, Arenal heard a loud boom, reported La Nación, Costa Rica’s main Spanish daily.

Etilma Ballestero, a neighbor of the bar, said after hearing the boom she “rushed into the street, and there we saw the flames on the roofs of the cabins, and we immediately called 9-1-1.”

Los Horcones housed five of 16 foreign women who had been lured to Costa Rica from Nicaragua with promises of restaurant work, only to find themselves virtually enslaved and forced into prostitution in miserable conditions, reported La Nación last night.

Three of the sixteen Nicaraguan women managed to report the situation to local police last month when a patron aided them in escaping. The thirteen other women were then liberated Saturday in a coordinated action by police and the public prosecutor’s office who made arrests at Los Horcones, and two bars in La Fortuna also housing female sex slaves.

The fire emergency call was registered with the La Fortuna, San Carlos Fire Department at 12:30 a.m. The fire brigade arrived six minutes after receiving the call, reported La Nación, and controlled the fire within minutes.

Johnny Rojas, a fireman who helped put out the fire estimated roughly 300 square meters were affected, principally the kitchen and the cabins, where the sex slaves were kept.

Ballestero told La Nación she feels there was foul play and that the fire was probably arson, since the bar had “many enemies, and the neighbors were disgusted with what was happening inside the bar.”