Wildfires Spread As Algeria Observes Day Of Mourning

PM hails people’s ‘solidarity,’ says president commited to provide aid; 2 French jets join effort to tame blazes; probe ordered into lynching of man

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Blazes raged across northern Algeria on Thursday as the country observed a national day of mourning for dozens of people killed in the latest wildfires to sweep the Mediterranean.

The North African country has been in the grip of devastating fires since Monday that have claimed at least 69 lives -- 41 civilians and 28 soldiers.

Soldiers and civilian volunteers have joined firefighters on multiple fronts in an effort to extinguish the blazes that have been fanned by windy and tinder-dry conditions.

In Tizi Ouzou district, the area with the highest casualty toll, a journalist reported entire sectors of forest going up in smoke.

Villagers forced to evacuate in order to escape the flames began trickling back to their homes, overwhelmed by the scale of the damage.

“I have nothing let. My workshop, my car, my flat. Even the tiles were destroyed,” one of them said. But he said he had “managed to save his family,” while adding that “neighbors died or lost their relatives.”

Flags were flying at half-mast after President Abdelmadjid Tebboune declared three days of national mourning starting from Thursday.