Incase the death of several people occurs out of the mistake or poor judgement of a caregiver, what should the caregiver do if he/she can not find a slave to free or fast two consecutive months for each of the victims?

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

If a person kills another person by mistake, he is obliged to pay a Diyah (blood money) and to expiate for the sin as we clarified in Fataawa 91306 and 88305. According to the view of the majority of the scholars causing the death of a person necessitates expiation as well, like killing someone by mistake.

The expiation in killing by mistake is to free a slave, and whoever does not find a slave to free, he should fast for two consecutive months. The expiation is multiplied on the killer according to the number of people who are killed.

If a person is obliged to expiate for many deaths and he is not able to fulfill these expiations, then he should expiate according to his ability, and the expiations which he is not able to fulfill remain his liability and he should expiate for them whenever he becomes able to do so. However, he is not exempted from the expiations by not being able to fulfill them according to the view of the majority of the scholars as mentioned in the Fiqh Encyclopedia.

Nonetheless, according to the view of the Shaafi’i School of jurisprudence, whoever is completely unable to free a slave or to fast in the expiation for killing, then he moves to feeding sixty poor people, and if he dies before he is able to fulfill this, then Allaah does not burden a soul more than it can bear.   

Allaah Knows best.