From Le Figaro with AFP
Published 2 hours ago, now updated
Shortly after the tragedy, bodies were piled into a refrigerated truck. ZAID AL-OBEIDI / AFP
Fireworks would have caused a fire in the community center. Highly flammable prefabricated panels contributed to its rapid spread.
At least 100 people in Iraq died and 150 others were injured in a fire during a wedding at a community center in Hamdaniyah, a town in the northern province of Nineveh, according to health authorities. Health authorities in Nineveh, the province where Hamdaniyah is located, “have recorded 100 deaths and more than 150 injured in the fire at a wedding hall in Hamdaniyah,” the official Iraqi news agency INA said, citing a “preliminary assessment.” Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr confirmed this report to AFP.
At the main hospital in Hamdaniyah, a small predominantly Christian town east of the metropolis of Mosul, an AFP photographer saw several ambulances arrive with sirens blaring. According to the same source, dozens of people gathered in the courtyard of the facility, relatives of victims or local residents who came to donate their blood. According to the photographer, residents also gathered in front of the open doors of a refrigerated truck loaded with several black body bags.
Poorly maintained safety standards
In a press release, Civil Defense reported the presence of prefabricated panels in the party room where the tragedy occurred, which were “highly flammable and violated safety standards.” “The fire caused parts of the ceiling to collapse due to the use of highly flammable and inexpensive construction materials,” said the same source. “Preliminary information indicates that fireworks were used during a wedding, causing a fire at the venue,” the statement added.
In a succinct statement, Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani called on health and interior ministers to “mobilize all rescue efforts” to help the victims of the tragedy. For its part, the Ministry of Health announced the “dispatch of trucks carrying medical aid” from Baghdad and other provinces of the country to ensure that its teams would be mobilized in Nineveh to “treat the injured.”
Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, Qaraqosh and its churches were systematically looted by the jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group when they entered the city in June 2014 aboard pickup trucks decorated with their flag. black. The town was slowly rebuilt after the defeat of IS in 2017. In March 2021 he received a visit from Pope Francis.
In Iraq, safety standards are poorly adhered to, be it in the construction or transport sectors. The country, whose infrastructure is in poor condition after decades of conflict, is regularly the scene of fires or fatal domestic accidents. In July 2021, a fire in the Covid ward of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people. And a few months earlier, in April, the explosion of oxygen cylinders in a Covid hospital in the capital Baghdad caused a fire and left more than 80 dead.