SANAA, 19 July 2005 — A fire sparked by an electrical short-circuit caused a stampede at a two-story wedding hall in Yemen, killing 10 girls and women, witnesses said yesterday. Police officials said the hall was packed with more than 600 guests when the fire broke out late on Sunday. The victims were crushed as the panicked guests stampeded through the hall’s only entrance after the blaze swept through the building, the officials said.
Medics at the Olofi hospital in the Red Sea city of Houdeida said scores of women were admitted to the hospital with injuries, mainly fractures.
Meanwhile, the news editor at An-Nahar, an independent weekly newspaper in Yemen, has been injured in a letter bomb attack in the capital Sanaa, the paper said yesterday.
