Two people died and two were seriously injured in a fire that swept through a building housing African immigrants in central Paris late Monday, a fire services spokesman said, four days after a blaze killed 17 Africans in the French capital.

The body of an adult was found early Tuesday and a child who had jumped from a fourth floor window died in hospital.

The spokesman said that 12 people were injured, two seriously, in the blaze that swept through a squat in a dilapidated building in the Marais district.

Some 100 firefighters and 30 vehicles tackled the fire which broke out on the first floor of the apartment building in the central third district.

On Friday shortly after midnight, 17 people were killed, 14 of them children, when fire destroyed a seven-storey apartment block, home to 130 mainly African immigrants, in the 13th district of southeastern Paris.

Monday's fire started at around 10 PM (20:00 GMT) for unknown reasons in a five-storey building, a squat ready for renovation which housed Africans, the fire service said.

The fire was brought under control at 11:30 PM, it said.

The seriously injured had jumped from windows. Among the 10 with less serious injuries were a child and four firemen.

"Twelve Ivorian families were living in the squat," the mayor of the 3rd arrondissement, Pierre Aidenbaum, told reporters at the scene, adding: "For years people had been saying the living conditions there were dreadful."

The 12 families, totalling about 40 people, were to have been rehoused in September so that the building could be renovated, he said.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe visited the people evacuated from the building who were taken to a nearby hotel.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies August 30, 2005)