 Location of Dhi Qar Governorate in Iraq | |
| Date | 12 July 2021 |
|---|---|
| Venue | Al-Hussein Teaching Hospital |
| Location | Nasiriyah, Nasiriyah District, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq |
| Type | Fire |
| Deaths | 60 |
| Non-fatal injuries | 100 |
A fire occurred at a Al-Hussein Teaching Hospital [1] for COVID-19 isolation ward in Nasiriyah, Nasiriyah District, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, on 12 July 2021. [2] The fire left at least 60 people dead and another 100 were injured. [3]
It was just three months ago that the new ward was built, which had space for 70 beds in Nasiriyah's Al-Hussein Teaching Hospital. Following years of violence, most of the Iraqi healthcare system has been characterized as having bad conditions. [4] In recent months, this has been characterized to be the second devastating type of incident. In April, a fire tore through a coronavirus ward in Baghdad, leaving more than 80 people killed. [5]
On 12 July 2021, a fire erupted in a Covid-19 quarantine facility, at the Al-Hussein hospital in the city of Nasiriyah. [6] A medic at the hospital who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, suggested that the hospital was lacking in safety measures such as a fire alarm or sprinkler system. [7] Reports have shown that the fire was triggered by an electrical cable that was faulty, exacerbated by oxygen cylinders which may have possibly exploded. [8] Firefighters and rescuers were seen searching through the hospital ward overnight, with victims' remains spread outside the hospital afterward. [9]
Also on 12 July, a small fire was reported to have erupted at the headquarters of the Iraqi health ministry, but no casualties were recorded as the fire was put out immediately. [10]
As of 13 July, at least 92 people were said to have been killed in the devastating fire at the hospital in southern Iraq. [11] More than 100 people were reportedly wounded in the fire at Nasiriyah's al-Hussein Teaching Hospital, according to Euronews. [12] Several COVID-19 patients who were on respirators asphyxiated or got burnt, as a result of the fire. [13] Meanwhile, regional officials as of 17 July, placed the death toll at 60, despite earlier reports suggesting 92. [3]
Two police vehicles were reportedly set ablaze by angry relatives of the victims, as they clashed with the Iraqi police. [1] According to BBC, 13 arrest warrants had been issued out, following the horrific event at the Nasiriyah teaching hospital. [4] The Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi ordered the suspension and detention of the heads of civil defense and health in Nasiriyah, after his emergency meetings with senior officials. The director of the al-Hussein Teaching Hospital was also said to have been among those whose arrest warrants were issued by the PM. [14] [15] President Barham Salih urged for accountability for those who were behind the incident, which he blamed on mismanagement and corruption. [16]
Following the unfortunate event, Saudi Arabia's King Salman offered his sympathy to the Iraqi President Barham Salih. [17] The UN Special Envoy to Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, also extended her condolences to families of the victims and called for the provision of a safer hospital environment. [18]
Barham Salih is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the eighth president of Iraq from 2018 to 2022.
Events in the year 2005 in Iraq.
The 2003 Nasiriyah bombing was a suicide attack on the Italian Carabinieri MSU headquarters in Nasiriyah, Iraq, south of Baghdad on 12 November 2003. The attack resulted in the deaths of 18 Italian servicemembers, mostly members of the MSU Carabinieri, an Italian civilian, and 9 Iraqi civilians and was the worst Italian military disaster since the Second World War. The attack, labeled a "terrorist act" by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was among a string of many attacks on non-American military international targets in Iraq that occurred shortly after the end of major combat operations, including the Jordanian and Turkish embassies, International Red Cross, and UN facilities.
The al-Khilani mosque bombing occurred on 19 June 2007 when a truck bomb exploded in front of the Shia Al-Khilani Mosque in Baghdad, Iraq. At least 78 people were killed and another 218 injured in the blast. The explosion occurred just two days after a four-day curfew banning vehicle movement in the city was lifted after the al-Askari Mosque bombing (2007), and just hours after 10,000 US troops began the Arrowhead Ripper offensive to the north of Baghdad. Because the site was a Shia mosque, the bombing is presumed to have been the work of Sunnis. The Sinak area where the explosion took place was also the targeted by a suicide car bomber on 28 May 2007, which resulted in 21 deaths.
The 2008 Iraqi Day of Ashura fighting was a series of clashes that occurred on the Islamic holy day of Ashura on January 18, 2008 and the next day in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Nasiriyah. The battles were fought between the Iraqi security forces and fighters of an Iraqi cult called the Soldiers of Heaven, which a year before fought a similar battle, also on Ashura, near the city of Najaf. Then their leader was reported killed along with his deputy Ahmed Hassani al-Yemeni but this time around it was reported that al-Yemeni was still alive and leading the cultists.
Events in the year 2009 in Iraq.
The 20 June 2009 Taza bombing was an attack which took place in Taza near Kirkuk, Iraq on 20 June 2009 in a dominant Shia Turkmen community. At least 73 people were killed and over 200 more were injured. Thirty homes were destroyed in the bombing.
Events in the year 2011 in Iraq.
The 9 September 2012 Iraq attacks were a series of coordinated bombings and shootings across the capital Baghdad and several major cities in the north and south of the country. At least 108 people were killed and 371 injured in the first major insurgent action since a similar wave of violence almost a month earlier.
The departure of US troops from Iraq in 2011 ended the period of occupation that had begun with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The time since U.S. withdrawal has been marked by a renewed Iraqi insurgency and by a spillover of the Syrian civil war into Iraq. By 2013, the insurgency escalated into a renewed war, the central government of Iraq being opposed by ISIL and various factions, primarily radical Sunni forces during the early phase of the conflict. The war ended in 2017 with an Iraqi government and allied victory, however ISIL continues a low-intensity insurgency in remote parts of the country.
On 14 September 2017, several members of ISIL staged multiple attacks on the outskirts of Nasiriyah in the southern Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, killing at least 84 people and injuring 93 others.
The Karbala stampede occurred on 10 September 2019, 31 people were killed and approximately 100 more were injured in a crowd crush during Ashura processions in Karbala, Iraq. There are conflicting accounts of what caused the crush, one claimed that a walkway collapsed, leading the crowd to panic. Another account stated that one person tripped and fell among the runners and others fell over him.
A series of demonstrations, marches, sit-ins and civil disobedience took place in Iraq from 2019 until 2021. It started on 1 October 2019, a date which was set by civil activists on social media, spreading mainly over the central and southern provinces of Iraq, to protest corruption, high unemployment, political sectarianism, inefficient public services and foreign interventionism. Protests spread quickly, coordinated over social media, to other provinces in Iraq. As the intensity of the demonstrations peaked in late October, protesters’ anger focused not only on the desire for a complete overhaul of the Iraqi government but also on driving out Iranian influence, including Iranian-aligned Shia militias. The government, with the help of Iranian-backed militias responded brutally, using live bullets, marksmen, hot water, hot pepper gas and tear gas against protesters, leading to many deaths and injuries.
Events in the year 2020 in Iraq.
Mustafa Abdul Latif Mishatat, known as Mustafa al-Kadhimi, alternatively spelt Mustafa al-Kadhimy, is an Iraqi politician, lawyer and bureaucrat and former intelligence officer who served as the Prime Minister of Iraq from May 2020 to October 2022. He previously served as columnist for several news outlets and the Director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, originally appointed in June 2016. He briefly served as Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs in an acting capacity in 2020. The latter part of his tenure closely followed the 2022 Iraqi political crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Iraq was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. During the pandemic, Iraq reported its first confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections on 22 February 2020 in Najaf. By April, the number of confirmed cases had exceeded the hundred mark in Baghdad, Basra, Sulaymaniyah, Erbil and Najaf.
In Lebanon, the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has resulted in 1,238,552 confirmed cases and 10,936 all-time deaths after COVID-19 was confirmed to have reached Lebanon in February 2020.
Events in the year 2021 in Iraq.
On the night of 24 to 25 April 2021, a fire at the Ibn al-Khatib hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, left at least 82 people dead and 110 others injured. The fire was started by the explosion of oxygen tanks designated for COVID-19 patients. A lack of fire detection and suppression systems contributed to the spread of the fire, and many died as a result of being taken off their ventilators to escape. The disaster led to calls for accountability, and the Minister for Health, Hassan al-Tamimi, was suspended by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi the following day.
On 14 August 2022, a fire broke out at the Abu Sefein Church, a Coptic Christian Orthodox church in the Imbaba neighborhood of Giza on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. The fire started during Sunday worship services when nearly 5,000 worshippers were gathered. The fire, which investigations found started due to a faulty air-conditioning unit, spread to a nursery the church hosted, killing 41 people in total throughout the complex, including at least 18 children. One of the church's priests, Abdul Masih Bakhit, was among those who died in the fire.
