25 soldiers die fighting Algerian fires
ALGIERS, Algeria — Algeria’s president announced Tuesday night that 25 soldiers were killed saving residents from the wildfires ravaging forests and villages east of the capital.
The president of the sprawling North African nation tweeted that the soldiers saved 100 citizens from the blazes in two areas in the mountainous Kabyle region, home of the Berbers.
Four other soldiers were seriously burned and seven others also had burns, the Defense Ministry said.
Firefighters and residents armed with simple tools battled a rash of forest fires in northern Algeria that began Monday, and authorities sent the army to help citizens fight fires and evacuate. Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud blamed “criminal hands” for some of the blazes.
Fires were burning through forests and devouring the olive trees, cattle and chickens that provide the livelihoods of families in the region.
“Thirty fires at the same time in the same region can’t be by chance,” Beldjoud said on national television, although no arrests were announced.
Other northern areas of Algeria also had active wildfires. The Civil Protection authority said on Algerian radio that seven people had died, six in Kabyle and a man in his 80s trying to save his animals in the Setif region to the east. It counted 41 blazes in 18 wilayas, or regions, as of Monday night, with 21 of them burning around the Kabyle capital of Tizi Ouzou.