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Agence France-Presse

At least 26 children aged between five and six burnt to death when their straw and wood classrooms caught fire in southern Niger, seven months after a similar tragedy in the capital Niamey.
“Right now, we have 26 dead and 13 injured, four of them seriously,” said Chaibou Aboubacar, mayor of Maradi city on November 8.
Africa’s 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 November 9.
Twenty children were burnt to death in a school fire in a working-class district of the city of Niamey in April.
“This tragic event once again puts the Nigerien people in mourning,” the government said in a statement, adding that straw and wood classrooms would henceforth be banned across the country.
Issoufou Arzika, secretary general of the Niger Teachers’ Union, said his union had alerted officials to the danger of the straw and wood classrooms after the Niamey fire.
“It is better to hold classes under trees than in straw huts, which have become flammable graves for pupils,” he said.
President Mohamed Bazoum recently promised to replace the wooden structures.


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Africa

At least 26 schoolchildren die in Niger when straw, wood classrooms go up in flames

A teacher in Niger works with students in a house serving as a school for Koranic studies in 2005. The nation, one of the world’s poorest, has a shortage of school buildings. File photo: AFP

News

World


The highly flammable materials will no longer be used in school buildings, says government
The deaths of the pupils, aged five and six, come seven months after 20 other youngsters were killed in a school fire



The highly flammable materials will no longer be used in school buildings, says government.


Education

Poverty