Senegal's President Macky Sall said that 11 newborn babies died in a fire at the neonatal section of a regional hospital in the town of Tivaouane.
He said the blaze broke out in the hospital's neonatal unit on Wednesday.
"I have just learned with pain and consternation the death of 11 newborn babies in the fire that occurred in the neonatology department of the Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh hospital in Tivaouane," Sall said in a tweet without giving further details about the fire.
"To their mothers and their families, I express my deepest sympathy," Sall, who is on a state visit in Angola, added.
Health minister, Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr, said on private Senegalese television TFM that "according to preliminary investigation, a short circuit triggered the fire".
Sarr, who is in Geneva for the World Health Assembly, said he would cut short the trip and return to Senegal immediately.
Tivaouane, one of Senegal's holy cities and a transport hub, is located around 120 km east of the capital Dakar.
Pakistan recorded its highest April rain since 1961, receiving more than double the usual rainfall for the month, according to the country's Meteorological Department.
Thousands of Israelis have protested demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas that would see the remaining Israeli hostages brought home from Gaza.
Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry's database.
The death toll from rains in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 56, local authorities said on Saturday morning, while dozens still have not been accounted for.
Hamas has said it is sending a delegation to Cairo on Saturday to discuss a deal for a truce and the release of hostages in Gaza, hours after US CIA Director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, according to Egyptian sources.