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Firemen
rescue a child from the burnt Paris apartment. (Reuters)
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PARIS,
August 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A fire raced
through a six-storey apartment bloc in Paris Friday, August 26, killing
fourteen children and three adults, including a pregnant woman.
"I
heard children cry, families scream. Some children were yelling for
their mothers and fathers," Oumar Cisse, the building caretaker,
told Reuters after he was evacuated from the building.
French
Police said 130 people, including 100 children, from Mali, Senegal,
Ivory Coast and Gambia were staying in the seven-storey 1920s building
on the corner of Boulevard Vincent-Auriol and the rue Edmond-Flamand.
The
fire broke out after the stairwell caught fire from the third to the
sixth storeys just after midnight while most residents were sleeping,
fire brigade Captain Jacques Dauvergne and witnesses said.
The
French Red Cross said one family lost four of its six children in the
tragedy, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
President
Jacques Chirac issued a statement expressing the nation's sympathy with
the families.
"This
ghastly catastrophe has sent all of France into mourning," he said.
Mohammed
Sisse, who arrived to the scene at 1:30 am, said he saw flames sweeping
the building between the third and fifth storeys.
"I
came to get news of my cousins, a couple and two children who lived on
the fourth floor," he told AFP.
"We
haven't seen them leave, we are very worried."
Poor
Condition
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Fire
brigadier rescuer helps evacuate victims. (Reuters)
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About
210 firemen with 50 fire engines rushed to the fire scene to battle the
inferno, which was extinguished after nearly three hours.
A
fire brigade spokesman told reporters the building had been overcrowded.
"The
stairwell was immediately burnt out, that's why the people took to the
windows," he said.
He
added that most of the victims were asphyxiated.
Cisse
said there was panic when the blaze broke out and "lots of people
wanted to jump out of the windows, children were crying."
"My
door was totally burnt, my son threw water then we were saved by the
firemen. Neighbors lost children," he said in shock.
The
cause of the fire was not known, but a criminal investigation was under
way.
Residents
said the building was dilapidated, with cracks in the walls, rats
running loose, and the sizeable families crowding into small apartments,
often 12 at a time.
The
wooden staircase creaked and shook every time it was used, they said.
The
victims who died were all "caught in a trap -- the trap of
poverty," said one survivor, who gave his name as Djoure.
The
Federation of African Workers in France claimed the building was
insalubrious and demanded the survivors be found decent lodgings.
Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy rushed to the site and announced that he had
ordered Paris police authorities to check all the buildings that could
be at risk of fire.
Friday's
fire occurred only four months after a blaze at a six-storey Paris hotel
killed 24 people in April, half of them children.
The
blaze at the hotel, which housed many immigrants, was one of the
deadliest in the French capital for years.
Some
people tried to save themselves by jumping from windows and others tried
to save their children by throwing them from upper floors when the fire
broke out in the middle of the night.
Police
said later they had detained a young woman and that she had admitted
accidentally causing the fire at the hotel, situated near the Galeries
Lafayette luxury department store.
Anti-racism
and pro-immigration groups have said the April tragedy highlighted the
precarious living conditions of many immigrants in France.
Thousands
of immigrants and families from poor backgrounds live in run-down hotels
or shabby buildings in Paris because of pressures on housing.
