Two children die in Ukraine camp fire

Kiev : A fire swept through a children's camp in Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odessa, killing two girls and leaving a third one missing, the authorities said on Saturday.

The fire broke out late Friday in the camp's wooden two-storey building where children slept in the resort city of Odessa some 440 kilometres (south of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, the emergencies state service said.

After the blaze was put out three girls aged between 8 and 12 were unaccounted for and later "fragments of two burned children's bodies were found" during work to clear away the debris, the service said in a statement.

The search for a third missing child was under way.

Two more children were hospitalised, added the service, noting that the cause of the fire has yet to be established.

Police said they had opened a criminal case into the blaze.

Deadly fires are common in Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries owing to outdated infrastructure and a lax approach to fire safety.

In May 2016 a fire killed 17 people in a privately-run care home for the elderly outside Kiev while in 2011 another blaze left 16 people dead in a another home in Ukraine's northwest Rivne region.