15 children killed in orphanage fire

At least 15 children have been killed in a fire that broke out while they slept at an orphanage in Haiti.

The blaze swept through the children's home on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which was run by the Orphanage of the Church of Bible Understanding, overnight on Thursday.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Americas and many of the children living in the orphanage are from families who are too poor to look after them.

Arielle Jeanty Villedrouin, Institute for Social Welfare Director, told Reuters it was a "tragic incident" and they were trying to trace relatives of the surviving children.

She said: "We are going to place them in a transit center while we do research on their family and see if we can reunite them with their parents.

She failed to disclose the exact number of children that died or the cause of the fire.

The Church of Bible Understanding is a Pennsylvania-based Christian non-profit group.

Contacted for comment, a woman who answered the group's local phone number said: "We will make it known when it is appropriate."

The group says on its website it started its first orphanage in Haiti nearly 40 years ago.