Fire breaks out in Turkey's southeastern Cizre district, nine dead, 25 injured

Nine people died, while 25 others were injured on Friday after a fire broke out in a building in Turkey's southeastern Cizre district, which has been experiencing heavy armed clashes between Turkish security forces and PKK terrorists since September 2015.

Şırnak Governorate released a statement on Friday stating that the building located on Cudi neighborhood, the center of PKK activity in the district and where heavy clashes took place over the last months, was set on fire by the PKK terrorists.

The statement said that terrorists opened fire on security forces from the four-storey tall building by automatic rifles and rocket launchers, and nine terrorists and one police officer were killed during the clashes. Escaping terrorists set the building on fire and firefighters could not be dispatched to the area due to heavy fire by terrorists, the statement said.

The statement did not specify how many people were killed and injured in the fire, or how many of those who were killed were civilians or terrorists.

Meanwhile, pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy İdris Baluken stated from his Twitter account that nine people were killed in the fire as it could not be extinguished, and 25 were wounded with burns, waiting for ambulances to arrive at the scene. Baluken said that the remaning people were unarmed, however, did not specify how many terrorists were killed at the scene.

The İhlas News Agency, citing a local source, stated that 37 people were trapped in the building and nine civilians were killed in the fire.