Algeria observes day of mourning after dozens killed in wildfires. At least 69 people killed in the devastating fires, as President Abdelmadjid Tebboune declares three days of national mourning, According to El Jazeera News.
Blazes continue to rage across northern Algeria as the country observes a national day of mourning after dozens of people were killed in the latest wildfires to sweep the Mediterranean nation.
The North African country has been in the grip of devastating fires since Monday that have killed at least 69 people – 41 civilians and 28 soldiers – as of Thursday.
As fires sprang up on Monday in the northern region of Kabylie and elsewhere, Algerian authorities sent in the army to help battle blazes and evacuate people. Multiple fires were burning through forests and devouring olive trees and livestock that provide the livelihoods of families in the area.
Tizi Ouzou district, the regional capital of Kabylie, recorded the highest casualty toll. A journalist from the AFP news agency reported entire sectors of forest going up in smoke. Villagers forced to evacuate in order to escape the flames began trickling back to their homes, overwhelmed by the scale of the damage
.
On the fourth day of the wildfires, efforts to overcome the wildfires are continuing in many regions where civilians and soldiers, often with limited means, joined the fight.
Images of trapped villagers, terrified livestock and forested hillsides reduced to blackened stumps have been shared on social media.
