RUPTLY A huge blaze has destroyed a refugee centre near Hamburg

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The blaze ripped through the Bergedorf district at 5.57pm on Friday (4.57pm local time), with the local fire department receiving emergency calls claiming “human life was in danger”. Huge flames engulfed the containers, which made up a two-storey makeshift residential building, and destroyed a refugee housing area spread over 300 square metres.

No casualties have been reported so far, although two people are missing. Firefighters have managed to bring the blaze under control.

Hamburg social services has announced that 37 residents of the centre have now been transferred to other accommodation facilities in the city. Several other incidents of refugee centres going up in flames have occurred in Germany. In November, a conference centre housing migrants was burned to the ground causing £8.5 million of damage over complaints there were not enough supplies of chocolate or sweets. Two men - A Moroccan and an Algerian - were charged with setting fire to the hall in Dusseldorf, Germany, in an attack that saw huge hundred-metre high billows of smoke fill the air above the city. German Red Cross employees reported the arson attack took place on June 7 as a result of heightened tensions during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting that sees Muslims avoid food during the daytime.

REUTERS Migrants set fire to a refugee centre in June over complaints about the food