Senegal Hospital Fire Leaves 11 Newborn Babies Dead

Family members console each other outside the Mame Abdoul Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital, where eleven babies died following an electrical fault, in Tivaouane, Senegal, on May 26, 2022. Seyllou/AFP via Getty Images

A hospital fire has killed 11 newborn babies in a neonatal ward in the Senegalese city of Tivaouane, the West African country’s president announced just before midnight local time on May 25.

“I have just learned with pain and dismay the death of 11 newborns, in the fire that occurred in the neonatal department of the Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital in Tivaouane,” Senegal President Macky Sall wrote on Twitter on May 25. “To their mothers and families, I express my deepest sympathy.”