Parts of a mosque in Örebro, Sweden, were totally destroyed in a fire on Monday night. The police are aware that it may have been arson.
Parts of the building are described as ‘totally destroyed’. In other areas of the building there is smoke, and water, damage, while a third area seems to have escaped without major damage’, said Ulf Jacobsen of Nerike’s fire department to TT news.
There were no reports of personal injuries, and the police haven’t so far established how the fire started.
‘In the initial phase, we’ll investigate this for possible arson. It didn’t begin to burn by itself, so we will initiate the investigation as an arson attack’, said Kenneth Johannesson, deputy head of the Bergslagen Police District.
The emergency services received a message about the fire a few minutes after 02.00 on Tuesday morning. According to the first reports, there was a car fire. But it was another picture that met firefighters who arrived at the mosque.
‘We haven’t seen any cars. But we soon received more messages, and then we realised that it was an extensive fire,’ said Jacobsen.
Several fi re trucks were at the scene throughout the night to extinguish the flames. By 06.30 there were still flames in parts of the building, but the fire department hopes that parts of the mosque can be saved.
The extinguishing work will continue throughout the day, and technical investigations will be carried out when the temperature after the fire has fallen, wrote Expressen newspaper.
During the morning, the police are planning to hold a press conference give information about what is known so far,and what will happen next.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
