Ankara: A fire broke out at a tent camp for Syrian refugees in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday, killing a pregnant Syrian woman and three of her children, Turkish officials said.
The fire was started by an electric heater in the family’s tent at a refugee camp in Ceylanpinar in Sanliurfa province near the border with Syria, the officials said. They said the fire had been extinguished.
The Ceylanpinar camp is one of some 15 camps in Turkey and is one of the largest, with more than 28,000 inhabitants.
More than 150,000 registered Syrian refugees are now living in camps in Turkey, with tens of thousands more living in towns and cities throughout the country.
Two people were killed and at least six were injured last July when a fire broke out at a refugee camp in Yayladagi in Hatay province further to the west.
The refugees are fleeing fighting between Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s forces and rebel fighters trying to overthrow his government.
Violence in Syria has intensified after what started as an anti-government uprising in March 2011 turned into a full-scale civil war with tens of thousands of people killed, most of them civilians.
