PARIS, June 23: Fourteen non-EU nationals without visas or work permits escaped from a Paris immigrant detention centre after a fire that was deliberately set, police said on Monday, revising earlier figures of 50 detainees.

Following a fresh roll-call, police said of the 249 people held at the Vincennes centre at the time the fire broke out on Saturday, only 14 were missing and believed to have escaped.

The detainees at France’s biggest clandestine immigrant processing centre were transferred overnight to other centres in the French cities of Lille, Nimes, Palaiseau and Oissel.

The police said the fire — which destroyed the centre’s two buildings — had not caused any “serious injuries.” Eighteen detainees were lightly injured and taken to hospital, and all were expected to be released on Monday, police said.—AFP