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(26 August 2005)
Paris blaze - 17 people (mostly African immigrants) dead
At least 17 people, including a number of children, have died in a fire in a seven-storey building in south Paris, the French fire service has said.
Some 22 people were injured in the blaze, which broke out in the 13th district in the early hours.
More than 200 firefighters tackled the blaze. The building is reported to have housed dozens of African immigrants.
In April 2005, 24 people had died in a fire at a one-star hotel housing immigrants in the French capital.
Today's fire broke out in a stairwell in the dilapidated building, French news agency AFP reported.
Around 210 firemen from 22 stations took were called to fight the blaze after the alarm was raised at 0017 Hrs (2217 GMT 25 Aug).
The building was occupied by people from Senegal and Mali, AFP quoted local residents as saying.
At least four of the dead were children, the French interior ministry said.
The ministry said Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was at the scene.
An investigation into the cause of the blaze is under way, AFP reported.
The fire has echoes of the inferno at the one-star Paris Opera hotel that killed 24 people, at least 10 of them children, and injured more than 50 in April this year.
Many of the hotel guests were African immigrants waiting to be re-housed.
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