According to the Algerian prime minister, about 25 Algerian soldiers and 17 civilians were killed in forest fires to the east of the capital Algiers in Algeria.
Several more soldiers were injured while fighting the forest fires in the Kabylie region in Algeria.
Fires have recently caused devastation across several Mediterranean countries , including Turkey, Greece, Lebanon and Cyprus. According to Algeria’s official news agency, more than 100 fires were reported across 17 Algerian provinces.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune paid tribute to the soldiers who were killed, saying that they managed to successfully rescue more than 100 people from the mountains of Bejaia and Tizi Ouzou. Interior Minister, Kamel Beldjoud, said that about 50 of the fires were “of criminal origin”.
Climate change increases the risk of hot, dry weather which is likely to fuel and cause wildfires. Earlier this week, a major UN scientific report found that human activity was changing the climate in unprecedented and often irreversible ways.
The study warned of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding and of a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade. Scientists have said that a catastrophe can still be avoided if the world acts quickly.
Sources: BBC, CGTN
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