Six Killed in Paris Housing Fire

Six people were killed Monday when fire raced through a dilapidated Paris apartment building that housed African immigrants, firefighters said today.

Late last week, a blaze killed 17 Africans in another rundown building.

Three people were seriously injured in the Monday fire at a six-story building in central Paris where Ivorian immigrants were living, firefighters said. About 11 people suffered minor injuries, including five of the estimated 130 firefighters at the scene.

The blaze was believed to have started on the second floor of the building. The cause was not immediately known.

Pierre Aidenbaum, the district mayor, said a dozen families from Ivory Coast lived in the building, where the conditions were known by authorities to be “absolutely inadmissible and dangerous.”

The city of Paris planned to renovate the building, Aidenbaum said, adding that he had started searching for a place to relocate the families a month ago.

Elisabeth Sevre, a neighbor from a nearby building, said the tenants were living in “frightening conditions” and that she often saw them taking water from a spigot on the street.

On Friday, 14 African children and three adults were killed in a blaze in southeastern Paris.