A fire tore through a six-storey Paris apartment block housing African immigrants today, killing 17 people, at least six of them children.
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.
Hospital sources said at least six children died, but police said that number would rise. "The number of dead children will certainly be more than six but we cannot say any more for now," the source said, adding that difficulties in identifying badly burned bodies made it difficult to establish the exact number of dead infants.
Rescue services attend the scene of a fire in Paris, in which 17 people were killed
Police said some 30 adults and 100 children had lived in the building, many of them from African countries such as Mali, Senegal or Ivory Coast. Most of the casualties were immigrants.
"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.
More than 20 people were injured in the blaze in southern Paris, a spokeswoman for Paris's hospitals said.
The fire will fuel a debate on the living conditions of immigrants in France. In April, a blaze at a Paris hotel used by immigrants killed 24 people, half of them children.
Smoke could still be seen billowing out of windows of the apartment block on the Vincent Auriol boulevard hours after today's blaze was brought under control.
"This building was run down. I knew something was going to happen. It was dangerous," said one woman who lives in a neighbouring apartment building.
Police cordoned off the area, near the river Seine and the Jardin des Plantes botanical garden.
"This dreadful disaster plunges all of France into mourning," President Jacques Chirac said in a statement.
Martin Hirsch from Emmaus, a group which helps people with housing difficulties, said large families with many children had used the building as temporary accommodation.
Opposition politicians said the fire highlighted a severe housing problem in Paris.
Martine Aubry from the opposition Socialists said today the authorities should acquire more space for social housing. "These insalubrious, indecent housing facilities once again prove that we are facing an unprecedented housing crisis in our country," she told France Info radio.
Thousands of immigrants and families from poor backgrounds live in run-down hotels or shabby buildings in Paris because of pressures on housing.
According to city authorities, more than 100,000 families from modest or poor backgrounds were looking for social housing in the capital last year, up from some 85,000 10 years ago, but only around 12,000 homes were allocated in 2004.