6 children die in Egypt’s reformatory blaze

Cairo: Six children were killed and 25 others injured in a fire that swept through a government-run reform centre for underage offenders in Cairo, security sources said.

The blaze was sparked Thursday night by an electric kettle that then hit a television set before blankets caught fire in the ward where children were kept, in the area of Al Marj on Cairo’s outskirts.

Preliminary investigations blamed the blaze on an electric fault, they added.

Police arrested a supervisor at the institute on suspicion of negligence for having locked up a ward where the blaze erupted, causing casualties among the children, a source said.

Firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze as prosecutors started an investigation into the incident.