Two young twins killed in Tripoli apartment fire

Two twin children, both two and a half years old, died in an apartment fire early Saturday morning in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, L'Orient Today’s correspondent in the north reported.

The children were asleep when the blaze broke out and could not be rescued in time.

Thick smoke from the fire blanketed the area, forcing nearby residents to flee their homes for fear of suffocation and the flames spreading to neighboring buildings. The fire erupted in a residential unit located between the Rifaiyeh and Citadel neighborhoods, according to our correspondent. Civil Defense teams managed to extinguish the flames shortly afterward, but the children had already succumbed.

Emergency responders from the Emergency and Relief Corps transported the children's bodies to the government hospital in Qobbeh. The incident has left the local community devastated, with grief and shock spreading among neighbors.

Reporting contributed by Michel Hallak