Tragic fire in Antalya containers kills pregnant mother and five children. Five injured as Turkey begins Bayram holiday celebrations

ISTANBUL: A woman and her five young children died when a fire ripped through containers housing agricultural workers near the southwestern Antalya resort, the regional governor said Friday.

Anadolu state news agency said the woman was pregnant.

The deaths occurred as Turkey began marking the three-day Bayram holiday to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Antalya Governor Hulusi Sahin said the fire ripped through several containers where greenhouse workers were living in Kepez, just north of Antalya.

“Three containers caught fire, and we lost a mother and five children aged between four and nine,” he told reporters standing in front of the charred remains of a container and a burned-out car.

Five others were injured in the blaze, one of whom had sustained “life-threatening injuries”, he said.

According to the Anadolu state news agency, the mother was pregnant at the time.

It said four of the injured — one of whom was a two-year-old — had the same family names as the victims, while the fifth was the business owner.

Although the cause was not immediately clear, Sahin said it appeared someone had been having a barbecue on a burner outside the containers.

“It seems they went to bed without extinguishing it. But for now, we cannot definitively say that’s why it happened,” he added.

Investigators were looking into the cause of the blaze and had arrested three people, he said.

 The Sun Malaysia