Algerian president Abdelmajid Tebboune declared today a three-day national mourning starting Thursday, temporarily freezing all government and local activities, except for solidarity campaign, as as blazes continue to unsettle the Kabyle region.
From all over Algeria, solidarity caravans are heading towards Tizi-Ouzou, the region most affected by the fires and where several people died in the flames.
The Ministry of National Defense announced today that the death toll from the forest fires has risen to 65, including 28 soldiers and 37 civilians, most of them in the state of Tizi Ouzou, while 12 soldiers are in critical conditions.
The 4 most affected provinces include Tizi-Ouzou with 30 fires, Jijel with 16 fires, Bejaia with 8 fires and El Tarf with 6 fires.
Minister of Finance, Ayman bin Abdul Rahman said today his department is working with European partners to rent firefighting planes to extinguish the fires.
The Minister of the Interior said the investigations said criminal acts are behind the fires, leading to “ the simultaneous outbreak of fifty fires across several localities of the wilaya.”*
But across the Mediterranean, climate experts are saying the troubling rate of this year’s fire season is a sign of a warming planet that is being made even hotter by the carbon emissions from the fires.
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