BBC News
Published
image captionThe remains of desks are all that is left from the straw-hut classrooms
At least 20 children have died after they became trapped in a fire at a school in Niger s capital, Niamey.
It started late on Tuesday afternoon when the children were in lessons, many in straw-hut classrooms.
The flames blocked the school gate, so most pupils had to escape over a wall, said a teacher s union official quoted by Reuters.
Most of those who did not manage to escape were attending the school s nursery, officials say.
The government-run junior and pre-school in the Pays Bas district of the city had a mixture of brick and straw-hut classrooms, BBC Hausa s Tchima Illa Issoufou reports from Niamey.
At least 20 children dead in Niger nursery school fire
By Chad Williams
Share
CAPE TOWN – At least twenty children have died after a fire gutted a school in Niger’s capital of Niamey on Tuesday afternoon.
According to a report by news broadcaster BBC, the children were attending lessons in straw-hut classrooms when the fire broke out.
Halidou Mounkaila, the secretary-general of the National Trade Union of Contractual Agents and Civil Servants in Basic Education said: Twenty-five out of 38 classrooms in the school were devastated by the fire, as reported by Anadolu Agency.
Straw-hut classrooms are often built as overflow areas for lessons in schools when there are not enough brick ones, according to a BBC reporter.