17 killed in Paris apartment inferno
A blaze tore through a Paris apartment building housing African immigrant families, killing at least 17 people, at least half of them children, police said today.
About 30 people were injured, two seriously. Most of the dead were from the west African nation of Mali, officials said.
About 100 children and 30 adults lived in the building, mostly immigrants from Mali and neighbouring Senegal.
The fire broke out shortly after midnight (11pm Thursday BST) in the building’s stairwell, police said. About 210 firefighters worked for an hour and a half before bringing the blaze under control.
Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy was at the scene, on a major boulevard in the city’s 13th district in south-eastern Paris.
Local police said many of the building’s residents were housed by charities, including France’s Emmaus association.
One resident of the seven-storey building described being awakened by cries from children and adults, then rushing to his window on the building's second floor.
People “jumped out the windows, they didn’t care about dying”, Oumar Cisse, 71, said.
About 100 children and 30 adults lived in the building, officials said. The building was charred but did not appear to have serious structural damage.
Inhabitants were housed by a group affiliated with Emmaus, which works to improve the lives of the impoverished, said Serge Blisko, the district’s mayor.
The building was “in a mediocre state”, he told France-Info radio.
Cisse, from Mali, said the building was infested by rats and mice and that there were cracks in the walls and lead in the paint.
“It was totally unhealthy,” he said.
The residents included people from Mali, Senegal, Gambia and Tunisia, Cisse said.
Sory Cassama, who lives in the building with his wife and 12 children, said he was asleep when a daughter knocked on the door. Their living room had filled with smoke.
“There was so much smoke in the stairwell, but we were still able to get out,” said Cassama, who said his wife was treated for smoke inhalation.
The fire was Paris’ worst since a hotel blaze in April killed 24 people. Many of those victims were African immigrants and children.
At the time, officials said a night watchman’s girlfriend may have accidentally caused that fire by placing candles on the floor to set the scene for a romantic tryst, but then leaving in a drunken rage.
