Nine school children have been burned to death by fire at an Islamic school near the centre of the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

The fire broke out as 45 children aged from six to 12 were sleeping inside a single room with wooden walls and zinc roofing in the Medina district, according to local reports.

The immediate cause of the fire is believed to be a candle light that was used by the children as a source of light for them when they were asleep.

Fire engines are reported to have struggled to drive down the narrow road leading to the school as a result of the slum nature of the area thereby hampering efforts to extinguish the fire.

The rest of the remaining children sustained minor injuries and they are receiving medical care at a hospital in the capital, local reporters say.

“When the fire started, a fire brigade truck came but could not get access to the site because of the narrow road leading to the house,” restaurant worker Saliou Gano, told the Reuters News Agency.

Dakar’s mayor, Khalifa Sall, told RFM radio that the ramshackle development of densely-populated residential areas in the city made it impossible for the emergency services to operate effectively.

Meanwhile, President Macky Sall has visited the scene of the fire along with senior government officials and promised to tackle the long-standing issue of Islamic schools which are not resource well.

Many analysts say human rights groups have repeatedly warned of the poor conditions in which children are housed in such schools, and some teachers have been accused of abuses.

Thousands of children from rural areas are sent to Dakar by poor parents to study at Islamic schools which focus on Koranic studies but many of them had no money to pay for accommodation, food and other things which compel some to end up begging for alms on the streets.

Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News

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