Fire kills 17 in Paris building housing immigrants

By Kerstin Gehmlich

PARIS (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.