Algerians mourn victims of fires

Algerians held funerals for the victims of the blazes that killed a total of 34 people.

The wildfires raged for days destroying homes and reducing vast areas of forest to scorched land.

In one small village 16 people were killed as they tried to flee the flames.

Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has sent his condolences to the families of those killed, among them 10 soldiers trapped by flames in Bejaia province.

Northern and eastern Algeria battle forest fires every summer, but they have been exacerbated by this year’s Mediterranean heatwave.

At the height of the disaster, more than 100 fires burned across 17 provinces, said Interior Minister Brahim Merad, the fires forcing the evacuation of more than 1500 people.

Africanews/Hauwa M.