At least 41 people, including at least 10 children, were killed and 14 others injured in a fire that broke out at Cairo's Abu Sefein church around 9 a.m local time.

"I saw them bringing dead people from the upper floor. Suffocation, suffocation, all of them dead. We didn't know how to get to them. And we don't know whose son this is, or whose daughter that is. Is this possible?" said witnesses. 

According to the country's interior ministry, the cause of the fire was an electrical fault in an air conditioner in the building.

The August 14 blaze was one of the worst fire tragedies in recent years in a country where safety standards and fire regulations are poorly enforced. In March last year, a fire at a garment factory near Cairo killed at least 20 people and injured 24 more.