Turkey: Pregnant Woman and Five Children Killed in Container Fire

A Syrian mother and her five young children died in a fire that tore through containers housing agricultural workers overnight near the resort city of Antalya in southwestern Turkey, the regional governor announced on Friday.

According to the DHA news agency, the deceased woman was 27 years old and seven months pregnant, and her husband, who was injured, is fighting for his life.

Antalya Governor Hulusi Sahin stated that the fire ravaged several containers where greenhouse workers lived in the Kepez district, just north of Antalya.

"Three containers caught fire and we lost a mother and five children aged four to nine," he told journalists, standing before the charred remains of a container and a burnt-out car. Five other people were injured in the blaze, one of them critically, he added.

According to DHA, the fire broke out in the northern Gaziler neighborhood around 1:30 a.m. (22:30 GMT Thursday), with local official Suleyman Kaplan confirming the victims were from a family of Syrian agricultural workers.

"A fire started in the middle of the night in a container where Syrians were staying. Unfortunately, five children and their pregnant mother died. The children's father was also injured and is in intensive care," he told DHA.

According to the official Anadolu Agency, four of the injured, including a two-year-old child, share the same surname as the deceased victims, while the fifth is the farm owner.

The cause of the tragedy has not yet been formally determined, but the governor suggested the possibility of someone using a barbecue grill outside the containers.

"It appears they went to sleep without extinguishing it. But for now, we cannot definitively say that's why it happened," added Hulusi Sahin.

Investigators are working to determine the origin of the fire and have detained three people, he further indicated.

Suleyman Kaplan emphasized that requests had been made repeatedly to authorities for a fire station in the area.

"As a community, we asked for a fire truck because the station is very far away and it takes emergency services too long to arrive," he said. "We urgently need a fire station."

These deaths come as Turkey begins to celebrate the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.