ALGIERS (Reuters) -Twenty-five people including 10 soldiers were killed in forest fires in Algeria on Monday, in the mountainous regions of Bejaia and Bouira, Algerian authorities said, as a heatwave spreads across north Africa and southern Europe.
Some 7,500 firefighters were battling to bring the flames under control, authorities said.
The interior ministry said that it is continuing its firefighting operations in the Boumerdes, Bouira, Tizi Ouzou, Jijel, Bejaia and Skikda regions.
About 1,500 people have been evacuated so far.
A major heatwave is sweeping across North Africa, with temperatures of 49 Celsius (120 Fahrenheit) recorded in some cities in neighbouring Tunisia.
In Tunisia, wildfires swept through the border town of Melloula. Witnesses told Reuters that fires that had begun in mountainous areas had reached some people’s homes in the town and forced hundreds of families to flee.
A civil protection official said that they had evacuated hundreds of the town’s residents by land and by sea, in fishermen’s boats and coastguard vessels.
(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi and Nayera Abdalla; Writing by Tarek Amara; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Macfie and Hugh Lawson)
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