00:01Days after a deadly school fire on 11 September Bukavu in eastern DR Congo,
00:07families gathered at this morgue ahead of their mass funeral service.
00:14According to UNICEF, at least 26 children died in the blaze and the stampede that followed.
00:24Thursday's blaze devastated a wide, densely built area on such a slope,
00:29leaving residents to peek through the debris of charred houses.
00:36I'm here for the burial ceremony of my grandmother who died during this fire.
00:41Her body had been brought here from the hospital morgue, so we are waiting to go bury her now.
00:50Blazes are common in Congolese cities which largely lack firefighting equipment
00:55and are often caused by a lack of spacing between buildings and illegal connections to the power grid.
01:04The M23 rebels who controlled Bukavu on Friday later declared three days of mourning
01:10amid an emotional response to the tragedy from around the country.
01:17My daughter was at the school when we were told that the school building was on fire and we went
01:23to her school quickly.
01:24When we arrived, we found her already dead.
01:28With everything that has happened, we are grateful to God for admitting her to his kingdom.
01:36Last week, a fire at a wedding in a capital in Kinshasa killed 12 people,
01:41while another blaze in October killed 14, mostly children in Bukavu.
01:46Health services are under severe strain as the region grapples with daily a Ebola outbreak in history
01:52that has killed more than 3,000 people with more than 6,800 confirmed cases recorded.
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