According to firefighters, the fire broke out during the night from Thursday to Friday, at 2:20 a.m., in a seven-story building in Miramas, a town located about sixty km northwest of Marseille. Four people from the same family – the father, the mother and their two children -, trapped by the flames, were burned to different degrees.
The mother, aged 41 and whose vital prognosis was in jeopardy, “died last night in hospital”, declared the public prosecutor of Aix-en-Provence, Jean-Luc Blachon. His son’s vital prognosis remains “very serious”, he added, specifying that the condition of his twin sister had “improved” but that she remained hospitalized, and that the father, burned on the face and in his hands according to the firefighters, was able to leave the hospital.
An investigation was opened for “murder, attempted murder by an organized gang and arson by an organized gang causing danger to people,” said the prosecutor. She was handed over to the judicial police. According to Jean-Luc Blachon, “the first investigations made it possible to conclude with certainty that the fire was of criminal origin”, and that the burned apartment, located on the ground floor, was “targeted”.
Belgium
