Islamic School Fire Kills 13 Children in Myanmar

                 The burnt Islamic school in Yangon

A fire at an Islamic school in Yangon killed 13 children in the early hours of Tuesday in what officials said could have been an accident, but comes in the aftermath of a wave of violence against Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.The children, all boys, suffocated after the fire broke out in a dormitory of the school next to a mosque in the central, multi-ethnic Botataung district of the former capital at about 2:40 a.m. (2010 GMT on Monday), neighbours and officials said.

A Central Fire Service duty officer contacted early on Tuesday blamed the fire on the overheating of a transformer but officials said later they were still investigating the cause."We extinguished the fire this morning but we don't know the root cause of it yet. There are a lot of rumours coming out and concern over this," fire department official Myint Aung said outside the school.

Armed riot police cordoned off the area, where a peaceful crowd had gathered by mid-morning.

According to official records, electrical faults and overheating are major causes of fires in Yangon.

But many Muslims were "very suspicious" about the causes of the fire, said Mya Aye, a Muslim member of the 88 Generation Students' pro-democracy group.

"We are worried and sad because innocent children died," he said.

A funeral for the 13 boys was due to be held on Tuesday afternoon.Yangon, by far the biggest city in Myanmar, escaped the anti-Muslim violence in March although the authorities posted police outside mosques and ordered restaurants in some areas to close early on some evenings as a precaution.Officially, 43 people died in the Buddhist-led violence, which erupted in Meikhtila town in the centre of the country on March 20 and included the fire-bombing of mosques.