Iraq fire: Around 100 killed in blaze at wedding party in Qaraqosh

At least 94 people have died and 100 others are injured after a fire broke out during a wedding in Iraq's biggest Christian town on Tuesday night.

Hundreds were celebrating at a banqueting hall in Qaraqosh, in Nineveh province, when the tragedy happened.

Witnesses and civil defence officials said the fire was sparked by fireworks set off as the bride and groom danced.

Highly flammable metal and plastic composite panels that covered the hall fuelled the blaze, they added.

Security forces arrested 10 of the venue's staff, its owner and three people involved with the fireworks on Wednesday.

In the afternoon, hundreds of mourners attended a funeral for more than 40 of the victims at a cemetery in Qaraqosh, which is also known as al-Hamdaniya and Bakhdida. Some carried portraits of their deceased loved ones.

• 'It was like Hell's doors opened'

• What we know about wedding blaze in Iraq's Qaraqosh

In an address, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako described the fire as a "complete and total catastrophe", according to Iraqi Kurdish news agency Rudaw.

Alsumaria TV, meanwhile, showed footage of a man at the funeral who it identified as the groom. BBC Verify ran an image of his face through facial recognition software, comparing it to a picture of the groom before the wedding, and is confident that the report is correct.

Civil defence officials told BBC News Arabic that both the groom and his bride survived, though initial reports said they had perished.

Several witnesses said entire families died in the fire

Footage posted online showed the couple on the dancefloor as flaming debris begins to fall from the ceiling.

Another video, filmed moments before, appeared to show four large fountain fireworks alight in the hall and then a large ceiling decoration nearby being engulfed by fire.

Rania Waad, a wedding guest who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as the bride and groom were slow dancing, "fireworks started to climb to the ceiling, the whole hall went up in flames".

"We couldn't see anything," the 17-year-old told AFP news agency. "We were suffocating, we didn't know how to get out."

Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno, told Reuters: "We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didn't got stuck. Even those who made their way out were broken."

Another survivor said several members of his family were among the victims.

"When [the fire] happened, my mother was in the bathroom," he said. "I couldn't find her after. I searched for my daughter, my son, my wife, my father and I couldn't find them. They are gone."

Footage showed flaming chunks falling from the ceiling

The number of victims is unclear. On Wednesday evening, Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari cited Nineveh's health directorate as saying that 94 people had died, according to the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA).

But the deputy governor of Nineveh, Hassan al-Allaq, told Reuters earlier that 113 people had been confirmed dead.

The injured have been transferred to hospitals across Nineveh, including the nearby city of Mosul, and in the neighbouring Kurdistan Region.

A journalist in the Kurdish city of Irbil, Blesa Shaways, told the BBC there had not been sufficient "logistical tools to rescue the people" from the fire and that Mosul did not have enough ambulances, healthcare staff and medical equipment to treat the injured.

Mr Shammari said a preliminary investigation had found the blaze was "caused by fireworks, which led to the roof burning heavily and collapsing on the citizens", INA reported.

The interior minister also said the hall also lacked the required "safety and security specifications" and that those responsible would "get their fair punishment".

An emergency worker picks through rubble early on Wednesday

Earlier, the Civil Defence Directorate said the hall had been covered with highly flammable metal composite panels, which are illegal in the country and "collapse within minutes when a fire breaks out". The panels also release toxic gases when burned, exacerbating fires.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said building inspections would be carried out and safety procedures would be scrutinised, with "the relevant authorities held accountable for any negligence".

Such incidents are not rare in Iraq, where corruption and mismanagement are rife and accountability is lacking.

In 2021, officials said a lack of safety measures had contributed to the deaths of nearly 100 people in a fire at a hospital in the city of Nasiriya.

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 militants committed many atrocities against the Christians who remained. They also desecrated churches and burned hundreds of homes to the ground before Iraqi and US-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 homes have yet to be rebuilt.

Additional reporting by Lina Sinjab in Beirut and Mattea Bubalo in London