Iraq’s Interior Ministry said Sunday that 82 people died and 110 were injured in a catastrophic fire that broke out in a Baghdad hospital.
Among the dead were at least 28 patients on ventilators battling severe symptoms of the coronavirus, tweeted Ali al-Bayati, a spokesman of the country's independent Human Rights Commission. The commission is a semi-official body.
Negligence on the part of hospital authorities has been blamed for the fire, which initial reports suggest was caused when an oxygen cylinder exploded in an intensive care ward at he Ibn al-Khatib hospital.
Iraq's prime minister fired key hospital officials Sunday hours after a fire broke out in an intensive care unit for coronavirus patients in Baghdad, causing deaths and injuries, The Associated Press reported.
He also declared three days of national mourning.
Initial reports indicated the fire at Ibh al-Khatib hospital late Saturday was caused when an oxygen cylinder exploded.
Firefighters rushed to battle the flames that raged across the second floor of the hospital. Civil defense teams put out flames until the early hours of the morning.
Ambulances transported dozens of wounded. There were initial reports of over a dozen dead, but authorities had not released official casualty figures as of midday Sunday.
The Health Ministry said at least 200 people were rescued from the scene.
The fire started with an explosion caused by “a fault in the storage of oxygen cylinders,” medical sources told AFP.
It spread quickly, according to the civil defense, as “the hospital had no fire protection system and false ceilings allowed the flames to spread to highly flammable products.”
Iraq’s hospitals have been worn down by decades of conflict and poor investment, with shortages in medicines and hospital beds.
The incident sparked outrage on social media and the prime minister has called for an investigation into the cause of the blaze.
In the middle of the night, as dozens of relatives were at the bedsides of the 30 patients in the intensive care unit at the hospital.
Videos on social media showed firefighters trying to extinguish flames at the hospital on the southeastern outskirts of the Iraqi capital, as patients and their relatives tried to flee the building.
“The majority of the victims died because they had to be moved and were taken off ventilators, while the others were suffocated by the smoke,” the civil defense said.
Baghdad Governor Mohammed Jaber called on the health ministry “to establish a commission of inquiry so that those who did not do their jobs may be brought to justice.”
In a statement, the government’s human rights commission said the incident was “a crime against patients exhausted by Covid-19 who put their lives in the hands of the health ministry and its institutions and instead of being treated, perished in flames.”
On Wednesday, the number of Covid-19 cases in Iraq surpassed one million, the highest of any Arab state.
The health ministry has recorded 15,217 deaths since the country’s first infections were reported in February 2020.
It has said it carries out around 40,000 tests daily from a population of 40 million.
Those patients who can often prefer to source oxygen tanks for treatment at home, rather than go to overcrowded and run-down hospitals.
The country launched its vaccination campaign last month, and has received nearly 650,000 doses of different vaccines — the majority by donation or through the Covax program, which is helping lower and middle income nations to procure vaccines.
As of Wednesday, 274,343 people had received at least one dose, the ministry said.
Health authorities have faced an uphill battle to convince Iraqis to get vaccinated, in the face of widespread skepticism over the jab and public reluctance to wear masks since the start of the pandemic.
