Fire kills 17 in Paris building housing immigrants
By Kerstin GehmlichPARIS (Reuters) - A fire tore through a six-storey Paris apartment block housing African immigrants on Friday, killing 17 people -- about half of them children, French officials said.
They said the blaze broke out in the stairwell of the traditional Parisian apartment building just after midnight when most residents would have been sleeping. It was brought under control two hours later but the cause was not immediately known.
"I heard children cry, families scream. Some children were yelling for their mothers and fathers," Oumar Cisse told reporters after he was evacuated from the building.
About 30 people were injured in the blaze in southern Paris.
A little boy in pyjamas, who seemed to be of African origin, clutched a toy animal as he was led away from the building by emergency officials. A number of men and women, some carrying children in their arms, were also evacuated.
Police said some 30 adults and 100 children had lived in the apartment block, many of them from African countries such as Mali. Most of the casualties were immigrants.
"Around half of the dead are children," a police spokeswoman said.
SMOKE BILLOWS OUT
Smoke could still be seen billowing out of windows of the apartment block hours after the blaze was brought under control.
Police cordoned off the area, near the river Seine and the Jardin des Plantes botanical garden. More than 200 firefighters and dozens of ambulance workers and police were at the scene.
"This dreadful disaster plunges all of France into mourning," President Jacques Chirac said in a statement. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy visited the blaze site in the early hours.
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 fires 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.
Copyright © 2008 Reuters
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