House fire kills 13 Pakistanis in Jordan

AMMAN-Reuters

Thirteen Pakistanis, including eight children, died when a fire swept through their makeshift dwellings on a farming estate in the Jordan Valley, Jordan's civil defence said on Dec. 2.

There were three other injuries in the fire that broke out after midnight that initial signs showed could have been an electrical fire, civil defence spokesman Iyad al Amre said in a statement.

Thousands of foreign labourers live in wretched conditions in private farms in the Jordan Valley, a fertile vegetable and fruit growing area.

Another civil defence source said two families lived in corrugated iron sheds that housed immigrant labourers and that an police investigation had been opened into the incident.

Three other people were taken to hospital suffering from shock and burns.

Jordan has in recent years seen several deadly incidents among Syrian refugees living in camps during the winter, such as fires caused by electrical faults or choking from domestic gas stoves.