Fire kills 11 inside the Netherlands' Schiphol airport jail

A fire raged for three hours early yesterday in a prison complex at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing 11 illegal immigrants and injuring 15 other people, Dutch authorities said.

The identities and nationalities of the dead was not immediately known. Officials declined to res-pond to reports that the fire may have been started by one of the prisoners and that the cells were unsafe.

"They were illegal aliens waiting to be extradited to their countries of origin," said Immigration Service spokesman Martin Bruinsma. "We are still busy trying to confirm their identities."

cause unknown

Rob Steenakker, a spokesman for the Dutch border police, said the cause of the fire was still being investigated. Several members of the Dutch parliament called for an independent investigation into whether the prison complex complied with safety standards.

An unknown number of detainees escaped during the blaze and three were arrested.

The fire broke out shortly after midnight and raged until 3am. Firefighters and airport police were among the injured, accor-ding to news reports. Four people were hospitalized for treatment, including one seriously injured prisoner.

"It's terrible if you hear about a fire of such size, eleven people dead," said Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in a televised interview from London, where he was to attend a EU summit. "Our thoughts are with the families of the victims and the wounded."

guards not serious

A prisoner told the Dutch TV station NOS that guards initially did not take prisoners' warnings of a fire seriously and told them nothing was wrong.

"First they said there was no problem, and they just kept us locked up," said the detainee, who was not identified. "Our throats started hurting. We kicked, we screamed, we rang the [alarm] bell of course. And then panic broke out."

The large prison block is located on the east side of Europe's fourth largest airport and is surrounded by a 3m-high fence and barbed wire.

The sprawling prefabricated buildings were set up in 2002 and are used to detain people who arrive by plane and have been refused entry to the Netherlands, including drug smugglers and failed asylum seekers.

The Netherlands, which has adopted one of the toughest immigration policies in Europe, is in the process of deporting some 26,000 asylum seekers who have been refused Dutch residency.

`a warning'

Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis said the airport fire and several other recent fires that killed illegal immigrants in France "should serve as a warning of the hazardous sit-uation affecting migrants in many of the Council of Europe member states."

"We must never forget that the bottom line of our migration policies and procedures must be respect for human rights, human dignity and the physical and mental integrity of the persons involved," he said.

About 350 prisoners were being held in the complex when the fire broke out. Some 43 were in the wing that caught fire. Prisoners were taken to other facilities in nearby cities or moved elsewhere within the complex, Dutch media reported.