Global Courant
Most of the wedding guests in the reception hall of al-Hamdaniyah belong to Nineveh’s Christian minority, but the tragedy shocked the entire community.
Funerals have taken place for the victims of a fire that killed more than 100 people at a wedding reception in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province.
Hundreds of people gathered at the Syriac Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception in the al-Hamdaniyah district of Nineveh on Thursday to say goodbye to some victims of the fire on Tuesday evening.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who ordered an investigation into the fire, also visited al-Hamdaniyah on Thursday to inspect the fire site and meet families of the victims and survivors.
Several of the dead were also buried in al-Hamdaniyah on Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the fire.
The crowd of mourners, many dressed in black, looked stunned as relatives and friends carried the victims’ coffins while other family members wailed. Others stood silently next to photos placed on the graves of their loved ones.
“Grief has taken over the city. It’s like a curfew has been imposed,” said Faten Youssef, one of the survivors, as she attended the funerals on Wednesday. “The city has transformed from happiness to sadness and morning.”
She said her family has vowed never to attend weddings again.
“My son told me that when he gets married, he will never see an event like this again – just a church ceremony,” she said.
More funerals are expected in the coming days as investigators continue to identify the victims, some of whom were burned beyond recognition.
Most of those present at the wedding belong to Nineveh’s Christian minority. But the tragedy sent waves of grief outside al-Hamdaniyah, a region of small towns with a mix of Christians, Muslims and small minority faiths in the Nineveh Plains outside the northern city of Mosul.
There was no official word on the cause of the fire, but video footage showed flames igniting from the lobby ceiling as fireworks were set off in the middle of the dance floor.
A video clip showed panicked guests, estimated at around 250, rushing to the exits of the al-Haitham Royal Wedding Hall as flaming decorations and chunks of ceiling rained down on them.
The tragedy was the latest to hit Iraq’s Christian minority, which has shrunk to a fraction of its former size due to deadly attacks over the past decade.
Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the fateful wedding, told the Associated Press news agency: “It was a disaster in every sense of the word.”
Calls for an investigation
As the funerals continued Thursday, survivors and relatives of the victims raised questions about the safety of the venue and the government’s role in enforcing building codes.
Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said the primary forensic report described a “lack of safety and security measures” at the site.
Iraqi security forces have arrested more than a dozen people linked to the hall’s operation, said Abdullah al-Jabouri, a security official who heads the Nineveh Operations Command.
Civil defense officials, quoted by the Iraqi News Agency, said the exterior of the wedding hall was covered with a highly flammable, cheap type of ‘sandwich panel’ cladding that is illegal in the country. The materials “collapse within minutes if a fire breaks out,” the Civil Defense Corp. said.
Experts say these cheaper sandwich panels don’t always meet safety standards and are especially dangerous in buildings without breaks to slow or stop a potential fire.
Similar panels have been blamed for several previous deadly fires in Iraq. In July 2021, a fire at a hospital in Nasiriyah that killed 60 to 92 people was determined to have been fueled by sandwich panels.
