A fire at a mall in eastern Iraq kills 50 people

A fire at a mall in eastern Iraq’s Wasit province killed 50 people, including women and children, the provincial governor said Thursday.

Gov. Mohammed al-Mayyeh in a statement declared three day of mourning for the fire that began Wednesday. Few other details were available about the fire in the town of Kut.

The governor said the cause of the fire is under investigation but that legal cases were filed against the building owner and mall owner. He did not specify what the charges were. “We assure the families of the innocent victims that we will not be lenient with those who were directly or indirectly responsible for this incident,” al-Mayyeh said.

Poor building standards have often contributed to tragic fires in Iraq. In July 2021, a blaze at a hospital in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah that killed between 60 to 92 people was determined to have been fueled by highly flammable, low-cost type of “sandwich panel” cladding that is illegal in Iraq.

In 2023, more than 100 people died in a fire at a wedding hall in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya in Nineveh province after the ceiling panels above a pyrotechnic machine burst into flames.