8 German Refugees Die in Bremen Fire

Eight people, four of them children, died when fire swept a home for ethnic German refugees from Eastern Europe in Bremen on Friday night, police said.

A police spokesman in the north German city said the cause of the blaze was not yet known, but there was no evidence of arson. Five people were being treated in a hospital, one in a serious condition.

Police said the second floor of the building, whose 240 inhabitants included former East Germans, was gutted.

There have been sporadic attacks on buildings housing ethnic Germans and former East Germans since more than 700,000 of them settled in western Germany last year.