Three young sisters whose parents escaped the war in Syria have tragically died in a house fire in Turkey.

The fire broke out upstairs in the detached two-floor house in the neighbourhood of Hocacihan in the city of Konya in south-central Turkey at around 23:10 on 22nd June.

Twins Fatma and Ayse El Ismail, 4, and Nuran El Ismail, 2, were sleeping in their rooms upstairs at the time.

Their young father, Cihat El Ismail, 23, and his young pregnant wife, Kader El Ismail, 21, were sitting with relatives downstairs, and did not immediately notice when the fire broke out.

The source of the fire was an electric heater in the twins’ room. When neighbours noticed the flames, they immediately informed the family and called the fire brigade.

The adults inside the house were unable to save their young relatives, as the flames rapidly engulfed their rooms.

Firefighters, police and paramedics arrived on the scene, and the former managed to put out the blaze as the house’s wooden ceiling collapsed.

The firefighters then went inside, where they retrieved the three sisters’ charred and lifeless bodies from the rubble. They were then taken to a hospital morgue for a post-mortem.

Paramedics treated the girls’ pregnant mother at the scene for shock while other relatives consoled the girls’ father.

It was not the first blaze that had broken out in the family home. A small fire had broken out one and a half months previously from an electrical cable, causing a visiting friend of the sisters to suffer a burn to the hand and head.

The girls’ father, who works in construction, subsequently repaired the room.

Before the latest blaze, there had been a 15-minute power cut, suggesting the fire was caused by a power surge when the electricity came back on.

The girls’ parents are Syrian nationals and came to Konya in 2015, four years after civil war broke out in their home country.

The investigation into the tragic incident is ongoing.