Damascus – AFP
A mother and her four children were killed in a house fire in Old Damascus early Wednesday morning, according to the Syrian Interior Ministry, which said “investigations are ongoing to determine the cause of the fire.”
The fire broke out “inside the first floor of a four-story building” in the vicinity of al-Amin in old Damascus and “killed the mother and her four children,” the ministry said on its Facebook page.
For its part, in a video interview with the father who survived the local Sham FM radio fire, he said, “The family was sleeping in the house. They set fire to the side of the door and no one else. The father was able to get out.”
The father added, “I was screaming for my children and my wife to come out, but they did not ask me. I tried to save them, but I could not. I wish I had died with them.”
Neighbors who were trapped in the crowd rushed in and put out the fire, but to no avail.
The commander of the Damascus fire brigade, Brigadier General Dawood Amiri, told the official Syrian news agency (SANA) after the extinguishing and cooling operations were over that the fire had “killed the mother and four children under the age of four. Twelve years” and the father had suffered burns.
From time to time, the official media reports about fires erupting in houses or buildings, and are often attached to a short circuit.
Eleven people died in a fire caused by an electrocution at a shopping center in central Damascus last March, and three people died in a fire at a hospital in Aleppo in February for the same reason.
In early 2019, seven children died as a result of a fire at their home in the Al-Amara neighborhood of the capital Damascus, which provoked widespread sympathy for the families of the victims.