- By Kathryn Armstrong and David Gritten
- BBC News
September 27, 2023
Updated 31 minutes ago
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Watch: Wedding Fire in Iraq – The Moment the Ceiling Catched Fire
At least 93 people have died and 101 others were injured after a fire broke out during a wedding in Iraq’s largest Christian city on Tuesday evening.
Hundreds were celebrating at a banquet hall in Qaraqosh, Nineveh province, when the tragedy occurred.
Witnesses and civil defense officials said the fire was started by fireworks set off while the bride and groom were dancing.
Highly flammable metal and plastic composite panels covering the hall fueled the fire, they added.
Security forces arrested nine employees of the venue and its owner on Wednesday.
Later, hundreds of mourners attended a funeral for more than 40 of the victims at a cemetery in Qaraqosh, also known as al-Hamdaniya and Bakhdida. Some carried portraits of their deceased loved ones.
Civil defense officials told BBC News Arabic that both the groom and his bride survived, but initial reports said they had died.
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Several witnesses said entire families died in the fire
Footage posted online showed the couple on the dance floor as burning debris fell from the ceiling.
Another video filmed shortly before appeared to show four large fireworks fountains igniting in the hall and then a large ceiling decoration nearby being engulfed by fire.
Rania Waad, a wedding guest who suffered a burn on her hand, said that while the bride and groom were slow dancing, “firecrackers started going up to the ceiling and the whole hall burst into flames.”
“We couldn’t see anything,” the 17-year-old told the AFP news agency. “We were suffocated, we didn’t know how to get out.”
Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno, told Portal: “We saw the fire pulsating and coming from the hall. Those who made it got out and those who didn’t got stuck. Even the ones that made their way out were broken.”
Another survivor said several members of his family were among the victims.
“When [the fire] “It happened, my mother was in the bathroom,” he said. “I couldn’t find her after that.” I looked for my daughter, my son, my wife, my father and couldn’t find them. They’re gone.”
Image source, social media
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Footage showed burning chunks falling from the ceiling
But Nineveh’s deputy governor, Hassan al-Allaq, previously told Portal that 113 people had been confirmed dead.
The injured were transferred to hospitals across Nineveh, including the nearby city of Mosul and the neighboring Kurdistan region.
A journalist in the Kurdish city of Irbil, Blesa Shaways, told the BBC that there were not enough “logistical means to rescue people” from the fire and that Mosul did not have enough ambulances, health workers and medical equipment to treat the injured treat.
Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari said a preliminary investigation showed the fire was “caused by fireworks, which caused the roof to burn heavily and collapse on citizens,” INA reported.
He also said that the hall also lacked the necessary “security measures” and that those responsible would receive “their just punishment.”
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An emergency responder digs through the rubble early Wednesday
The civil defense authority had previously said the hall had been covered with highly flammable metal composite panels, which are illegal in the country and “collapse within minutes in the event of a fire”. Additionally, when burning, the panels release toxic gases that worsen fires.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said building inspections would be carried out and security procedures reviewed, with “relevant authorities held accountable for any negligence.”
Such incidents are not uncommon in Iraq, where corruption and mismanagement are widespread and accountability is lacking.
In 2021, officials said a lack of safety measures contributed to the deaths of nearly 100 people in a fire at a hospital in Nasiriya town.
Qaraqosh was home to about 50,000 people, the vast majority of them Assyrian Christians, before it was overrun by the Sunni Muslim jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in 2014.
Although most people fled, IS fighters committed numerous atrocities against the remaining Christians. They also desecrated churches and burned hundreds of homes before Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces recaptured the city in 2016.
About half of Qaraqosh’s residents are said to have returned since then, but many of the destroyed houses have yet to be rebuilt.
Additional reporting by Lina Sinjab in Beirut and Mattea Bubalo in London