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Niger: At least 26 children die in Niger school fire
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NIAMEY, 10 November 2021, (TON): At least 26 children, aged five and six-years-old, burnt to death on Monday when their straw and wood classrooms caught fire in southern Niger, seven months after a similar tragedy in the capital Niamey.
Chaibou Aboubacar, mayor of Maradi city said “right now, we have 26 dead and 13 injured, four of them seriously.”
Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, has tried to fix shortages of school buildings by constructing thousands of straw and wood sheds to serve as classrooms, with children sometimes sitting on the ground.
Fires in the highly flammable classrooms are common but rarely result in casualties.
Three days of mourning have been declared in the Maradi region from Tuesday.
Twenty children were burnt to death in a school fire in a working-class district of Niamey in April.
Issoufou Arzika, secretary general of the Niger Teachers’ Union, told media that Monday’s fire had “decimated” the school in Maradi.
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