BAGHDAD: Iraq’s prime minister on Thursday visited injured patients and the families of victims in northern Iraq days after a deadly wedding fire killed around 100 people, as two more people died from their injuries.
Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani arrived in Nineveh province early Thursday with a delegation of ministers and security officials, state television reported. He met with the wounded and family members of victims at Hamdaniyah Hospital and Al-Jumhoori Hospital.
He later visited the Syriac Catholic Mar Behnam Monastery to express his condolences to victims.
A health official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told The Associated Press that two critically burned victims — a 30-year-old woman and a 4-year-old child — died from their injuries.
Around 250 panicked guests surged for the exits on Tuesday night in the Haitham Royal Wedding Hall in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya near Mosul after the ceiling panels above a pyrotechnic machine burst into flames.
Authorities said around 100 people died in the incident, and the death toll is expected to rise with at least 100 other people still injured, many of them critically burned.
The venue’s owners have been accused of violating safety protocols.
The Mosul Municipality on Wednesday called for the closure of hotels, restaurants, and other venues that don’t have safety approvals or have ignored warnings.
Funeral processions continued Thursday at the Saint Behnam Syriac Catholic Church. A video circulating on Iraqi media and social media showed the bride and groom among the crowd mourning.
The Interior Ministry said highly flammable building materials contributed to the disaster and accused the owners of violating safety and security protocols. The tragedy was the latest to hit Iraq’s Christian minority, which has dwindled to a fraction of its former size over the past decade.
A security official told the AP that one of the venue’s owners and 13 workers and employees are currently under investigation. The official said that negligence caused the incident and that the government is preparing to compensate survivors and the families of victims. He speak on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
A government spokesperson said the authorities will conduct strict inspections of hotels, schools, restaurants and event venues to make sure they are complying with safety standards.
One owner of the venue, Chonny Suleiman Naboo, told The Associated Press that an electrical fault caused the fire and denied that they had neglected safety procedures.
Iraq’s prime minister visits wedding fire victims as 2 more people die from their injuries
Iraq’s prime minister visits wedding fire victims as 2 more people die from their injuries
- Around 250 panicked guests surged for the exits on Tuesday night in the Haitham Royal Wedding Hall in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya near Mosul
Palestinian NGO condemns Israeli act of ‘revenge’ after prisoner abuse video
- A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison.
Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.
They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.
The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.
“This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees,” Abdallah al?Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told AFP on Saturday.
“Everything Ben Gvir and the far?right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps — it also impacts the global legal and human rights system,” he added.
Ben Gvir, known for his inflammatory rhetoric, is considered one of the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
“It is simply a source of pride — arriving at a prison like this, a prison for terrorists, the vilest of the vile, seeing them like this,” Ben Gvir said in the video.
“I want one more thing: to execute them — the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday said the remarks were “a new war crime and a blatant challenge to international humanitarian law regarding prisoners.”
International rights groups have repeatedly warned of alleged abuse and mistreatment inflicted in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.
