A fire at a Quranic school near the Liberian capital Monrovia overnight killed at least 30 children, the president's office said Wednesday.

Emergency services had told President George Weah 28 people had died, his spokesman Solo Kelgbeh told AFP, as the president visited the site in Paynesville, on the outskirts of the capital.

"The kids were learning the Koran when the fire broke out," police spokesman Moses Carter said. "The cause is not known yet."

The fire started late Tuesday in the suburbs of the capital Monrovia, President George Weah said in a tweet.

Carter said that the fire around midnight gutted a dormitory and school building where students slept about 7 miles (11 kilometers) east of Monrovia. He says only the imam, their teacher and two students managed to escape.

Presidential spokesman Isaac Solo Kelgbeh says President George Weah has paid a visit to the scene and is due to attend the funeral of the victims at a Monrovia mosque.

People at the scene wailed and wept as police fought a surging crowd to make way for ambulances taking the bodies.