Nine children were killed due to what is believed to be a candle lit fire at a Koranic school in Dakar. Firetrucks struggled to come to the rescue because of the narrow roads leading to the school. Dakar's mayor, Khalifa Sall, told RFM radio that because of the ramshackle development of densely-populated residential areas in the city, it's impossible for the emergency services to efficiently operate. The BBC's Thomas Fessy says human rights groups have warned multiple times of the poor conditions in which children in such schools are housed in. Some teachers have even been accused of abuses. Luckily, there were no more than nine deaths out of the forty-five that were sleeping in the room where the fire occurred.
I think this story is really sad, especially since there were previous warnings about the conditions of the schools that these children are housed in. I hope that this incident provokes authorities to further investigate these schools, and possibly help children like these move into better places.
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21664482
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