At least 38 people have died and scores more have been wounded in a fire that tore through a jail in Burundi.
Vice-President Prosper Bazombanza told journalists the blaze hit a congested facility in the capital Gitega, with at least 69 people seriously injured.
“We started shouting that we were going to be burned alive when we saw the flames rising very high, but the police refused to open the doors of our quarters, saying ‘these are the orders we have received’,” one inmate told AFP news agency over the phone.
“I don’t know how I escaped, but there are prisoners who were burned completely,” he added.
Witnesses told AFP the fire has now been brought under control.
s circulating online show a building engulfed in flames and piles of bodies, said to be of inmates in the jail.
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