ALGIERS, July 16 (Reuters) – Eleven people, including children, were killed and 19 injured in a fire at an orphanage close to the Algerian capital Algiers early on Thursday, authorities said.
Locals and emergency crews rushed to the building in the Mohammadia district of the province of Algiers, where blackened masonry was visible above two window openings behind the exterior gates.
Ten of the injured suffered burns of varying severity, and emergency crews evacuated five people with disabilities from the orphanage to safety, the civil protection agency said.
It gave no details about the victims or their ages or the possible cause of the fire.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune expressed his condolences in a social media post, saying he had received news “of the deaths of children and the injuries of others following a fire that broke out at a children’s care facility.”
Elias Gabrini, 58, a resident in the Mohammadia neighbourhood near the orphanage who witnessed the fire, told Reuters residents rushed from their homes after hearing about the fire.
“It’s truly overwhelming. Seeing this with your own eyes is not easy,” he said.
Algeria has been gripped by a heatwave in recent days, with civil protection units extinguishing 913 fires nationwide since July 8, state news agency APS reported on Wednesday, citing the General Directorate of Civil Protection.
(Reporting by Reuters staff and Nayera Abdallah and Eman Abouhassira in Dubai; Writing by Eman Abouhassira; Editing by Mark Potter, William Maclean, Alexandra Hudson)
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