A fire burning at an orphanage in Algeria’s capital has killed at least 11 people, including children, authorities said Thursday, amid a heatwave that has sparked hundreds of blazes in the country’s north.
Firefighters had been battling to extinguish the flames since before dawn in the Mohammadia suburb of Algiers.
“At around 3 a.m., we heard the fire engines arriving and the children screaming,” said Abdessalam Merrah, 41, who lives nearby.
“We helped as much as we could, but unfortunately we were told that 11 people had already died.”
Black stains were seen around the building’s windows on Thursday morning.
A witness said firefighters had used a chainsaw to remove metal bars from a window.
The Algerian civil defence said the toll was provisional and added that another 19 people were injured in the fire, the cause of which is unknown.
Rachid Belhadj, head of the forensic medicine department at Mustapha Bacha Hospital, told local television that some of the bodies were completely burned and required DNA tests to be identified.
Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune later said “several children” were among the dead.
National television showed Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb visiting the wounded at two medical facilities in Algiers.
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