PARIS, April 15 (AFP) - Fire swept through a central Paris hotel filled with immigrants and tourists early Friday, killing at least 20 people, 10 of them children, and injuring dozens more in the deadliest blaze in the French capital in 20 years.

Witnesses and firefighters said some guests leapt from windows to escape the blaze, which destroyed the six-storey one-star Paris-Opera hotel, located behind the upmarket Galeries Lafayette department store and near the Opera Garnier.—AFP