The fire broke out in the straw and wood classrooms, known as huts.
At least 26 children between the ages of five and six died in a school fire in Maradi, southern Niger, on Monday, he told the AFP the governor of the region, Chaibou Aboubacar.
“At the moment there are 26 dead and 13 injured, four of them serious,” said the governor, who added that these are first-year primary school students “who are between 5 and 6 years old.”
“We do not know the origin of the fire, an investigation is being carried out to determine it,” he added, announcing a “three-day mourning period in the Maradi region” starting Tuesday.
The fire broke out in the straw and wood classrooms, known as huts.
In April, twenty schoolchildren were burned to death in a fire in a similar classroom in a working-class neighborhood of Niamey.
In Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, to remedy the lack of classrooms, the authorities are building thousands of thatched and wooden sheds where children take their classes, sometimes sitting on the ground.
Fires in these precarious and highly flammable classrooms are relatively common, but rarely cause casualties. (I)
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