Vice President Prosper Bazombanza said announced that at least 38 people were killed and 69 were injured in a huge fire that swept across an overcrowded prison in Burundi’s political capital, Gitega, 

Several areas of the facility were destroyed in the blaze as well. The cause of the fire is not revealed yet.

Witnesses described prisoners as perishing in the flames, and those with the most serious burns were rushed to hospital.

“We started shouting that we were going to be burned alive when we saw the flames rising very high, but the police refused to open the doors of our quarters, saying ‘these are the orders we have received’,” the detainee told the AFP news agency over the phone.

“I don’t know how I escaped, but there are prisoners who were burned completely.”

The facility, with a capacity of 400, housed more than 1,500 inmates at the end of November, according to prison authorities.

It is worth noting that the same prison in Gitega was struck by another fire earlier in August, according to the Interior Ministry, and the claimed cause was an electrical short-circuit. No casualties were reported from that incident.