Moscow market fire kills 15 migrant workers

Fifteen people died Tuesday when a night time fire tore through a two-storey Moscow market warehouse in which migrant workers from a former Soviet republic were camping out.

"We have found another body and now there are 15," a Moscow emergencies ministry spokesman told AFP. 'They were migrant workers. We are trying to confirm which (ex-Soviet) republic they came from." Unconfirmed news reports said the migrants were from the impoverished Central Asian nation of Tajikistan.

Numerous Moscow markets employ cheap labourers from the region without giving them proper housing or pay.

The blaze broke out early Tuesday at the market on the southern outskirts of the city called Kachalovsky. AFP