Five people, including two young brothers, were killed in an apartment fire in a working class district of the western German city of Cologne early yesterday, police said.

Police said four of the victims, including brothers aged five and seven and their father, were from Congo. The boys' mother waved to firefighters from a balcony for help. She and her two-year-old son were taken to hospital with injuries.

It was not immediately clear whether the victims were from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Congo Republic.

Police said the fire began on the second floor of the nine-storey building shortly before 2 a.m. and spread to the fourth floor where most of the victims were found.

They said it was not an arson attack, but they were still trying to determine the exact cause.

Another nine people were taken to hospital with injuries. A spokesman for the Cologne fire brigade said flames from the apartment in the second floor were so intense that they broke open the apartment window on the fourth floor.

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