The police are hunting three young men who are suspected of starting a fire in a residential property in Nice that killed seven people on Thursday night.
This is stated by the French Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, according to the AFP news agency.
The dead are three children and a teenager aged 5, 7, 10 and 17 respectively, as well as three adults. All the victims are members of the same Comorian family.
The children and the teenager lost their lives when they tried to escape the fire by jumping out of a window in the building.
It is unclear whether the adults died inside the apartments or whether they also jumped out of the building.
As a result of the fire, three people have been hospitalized. At least one of them jumped out of a window like the dead children and has sustained life-threatening injuries.
Video footage from the residential property on the night of Thursday allegedly shows three men pouring petrol into a stairwell and then igniting the flammable liquid, writes the news agency dpa.
– What has happened here, this fire, is absolutely terrible and disgusting.
– The investigation is in full swing and we are looking for three people, Attal says according to AFP.
The fire service received the report about the fire in the Les Moulins neighborhood at 02.30 on Thursday night.
A significant number of rescue workers took part in the extinguishing work. A total of 25 fire trucks and 72 firefighters were dispatched to the scene.
Rescue workers report a violent fire in an apartment on the building’s seventh floor.
Preliminary investigations indicate that the fire started on the second floor and then spread to the higher floors.
Residents placed mattresses on the ground to cushion the fall of those who were trapped in the building and wanted to jump out of the windows.
When the fire brigade arrived, they succeeded in rescuing several people from the building with the help of revolving ladders.
About 350,000 people live in Nice, a popular tourist destination on the French Mediterranean coast close to the border with Italy.
Les Moulins is described as a working-class neighborhood close to the city’s airport.
/ritzau/
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
