15 killed in orphanage fire in South Africa

Fifteen people, including eight children were killed today in a fire in an orphanage in South Africa, even as the government ordered a probe into the blaze. 

Nine more children aged between two and 15 have been admitted with serious burn injuries in a hospital.

Officials of the South African ministry of social development will be probing how 15 people, eight of them children, were burnt to death at the orphanage in Newcastle town in Northern KwaZulu-Natal Province.

Police spokesman Jay Naicker confirmed that they were called to the Hope in Christ Home in the township of eNgogo near the town in the early hours today, where the owner of the house as well as her own four children were among those found dead.

Two vehicles outside the orphanage were also burnt out. The department of social development, which administered the orphanage, has sent counsellors in for the survivors.

Orphanages similar to this one have been springing up all over townships in South Africa as concerned residents take in the increasing number of children in the wake of parents succumbing to the HIV-AIDS pandemic.