Fire in Yemeni prison leaves 8 dead

Eight Yemeni prisoners were killed and three more injured Saturday in a fire at a central prison in the Ibb Province south of Sanaa. The Minister of the Interior’s media secretary, Colonel Mohammed al-Mauri, confirmed the incident to Arabstoday and said the minister had ordered the creation of a committee to launch an investigation. The security source said eight inmates were killed while three sustained varying degrees of injuries in the fire. He reported that all victims were “mentally ill” and had been charged with murder and that their “mental state” had prevented them from escaping. Al-Mauri added that preliminary information point to an electrical fire that started in the prison’s cellar and spread to other sections, but he did not consider it improbable that the fire would have been caused by arson with an eye to breaking out an inmate. Investigations are ongoing, he said, and will reveal whether the fire was caused by negligence or arson.