Immigrants killed in another Paris fire

Six people, including a 6-year-old child, have been killed in a fire in a rundown Paris apartment building where African immigrants were living.

A deadly apartment blaze last week killed 17 Africans

The latest fire comes just days after a deadly blaze killed 17 Africans in the French capital.

Three other people had serious injuries in the fire, which started late on Monday and tore through a six-storey building in central Paris where Ivorian immigrants were living, firefighters said.

About 11 people, including five firefighters, suffered light injuries.

Nearly 130 firefighters battled the blaze, which burned in a central district of Paris.

The fire was believed to have started on the second floor of the building. The cause was not immediately known.

Frightening conditions

Pierre Aidenbaum, the district mayor, said a dozen families from the Ivory Coast lived in the building, where the conditions were known by the authorities to be “absolutely inadmissible and dangerous”.

The fires have focused attention on the plight of poor immigrants 
The fires have focused attention on the plight of poor immigrants 

The fires have focused attention
on the plight of poor immigrants 

The city government planned to renovate the building and bought it six months ago, Aidenbaum said, adding that he started the process of searching for a place to relocate the families a month ago.

A woman who lived in a nearby building, Elisabeth Sevre, said the tenants were living in “frightening conditions” and that she often saw them taking water from a spigot on the street.

Calls for action

On Friday, 14 children and three adults were killed in a blaze in southeastern Paris at a rundown apartment building that housed African immigrants.

The fire focused attention on the plight of poor immigrants in Paris and drew angry calls for action on behalf of the needy.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy pointed to overcrowding as a reason for the high toll of that blaze and ordered an inventory of dangerous and overcrowded buildings.