Nine Syrians, including eight children, killed in house fire in Turkey

Nine Syrians, including eight children, were killed in a fire that broke out at their home in northwest Turkey on Tuesday.

The blaze was connected to a stove on the second floor of a four-storey building, resulting in the deaths of a 31-year-old woman, her six children aged between one and 11, and two other family members.

The governor of Bursa, where the accident happened, later confirmed the deaths.

Authorities said the father tried to save his family and all the victims died of smoke inhalation.

Bursa'da Suriyeli 9 muhacir kardeşimizi kaybettik. 1 anne, 6 kardeş, 2 kuzen. Onlar cenneti kazandı Allah'ın izniyle.#متابعة

ضحايا حريق بورصة الذي راح ضحيته 9 سوريين من قرية شامر في ريف حلب "سيدة وأطفالها الستة وطفلين من أبناء عمهم" pic.twitter.com/FvZy8oHn0m

— Mehmet Yılmaz (@OkuyucuYorumcu) November 9, 2022

Four other people who lived on the upper floor, including a child, were also hospitalised.

Twitter users said the victims were from Syria’s Aleppo governorate.

Turkey currently hosts approximately 3.5 million Syrian refugees who fled the conflict back home, which has left well over half a million dead and much of the country in ruins.

Many have faced deportation in recent years amid a wave of racism against them, and have found on several occasions that they are barred from re-entering Turkey if they visit their hometowns in Syria.

Ankara – which has supported rebel and Islamist groups fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime - has built hundreds of small housing units in parts of northern Syria it controls to accommodate returning refugees.