A blaze at an orphanage killed 11 people, including children, in Algeria early Thursday morning, the authorities said, as emergency responders fought fires across the country in 100-degree Fahrenheit heat.
Algeria’s emergency response agency, the General Directorate of Civil Protection, did not specify the victims’ ages, but President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on social media that children had died in the fire.
Firefighters responded to the fire at about 3:30 a.m. in Mohammadia, a suburb of the capital, Algiers, the civil protection agency said. Ten people emerged with burn injuries, and nine more were treated for respiratory problems or shock, the agency said.
Five people with special needs were evacuated, it added.
The authorities did not say what may have caused the fire, one of more than 900 blazes that Algeria’s firefighters have battled across the country’s north over the past week, according to state media. An intense heat wave has scorched the North African country this week, and state media reported that temperatures this weekend could reach as high as 118 degrees Fahrenheit, or 48 Celsius, in the north of the country.
At the time of the incident, Mr. Tebboune was on an official visit to Germany, where he met with members of the Algerian diaspora and discussed economic cooperation with German leaders. He shared his condolences via social media on Thursday.
“In the face of this great calamity that occurred yesterday on the occasion of the National Children’s Day, I ask God the Almighty to envelop the deceased in His vast mercy, and to grant the injured a speedy recovery,” he said.
Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb and other government officials attended a funeral near Algiers for victims of the orphanage fire on Thursday afternoon, state media reported, sharing a photo of a row of coffins draped in Algeria’s flag.
Wildfires are a persistent threat in Algeria. A blaze in 2022 killed at least 37 people in the nation’s northeast.
