Over a hundred people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured at approximately 10:45 pm on Tuesday when a fire erupted inside a banquet hall hosting a packed wedding in the Assyrian Christian-majority district of Hamdaniya (also known as Qaraqosh or Bakhdida), around 45 kilometers southeast of Iraq’s second-largest northern city of Mosul.
The blaze, triggered by fireworks directed at a highly-flammable ceiling built with a plastic material deemed illegal by the Iraqi government, triggered major panic and stampede in the hall when feelings of celebration, laughter, and joy quickly descended into hellish screams and agony, as the attendants, who numbered at over 1,000, attempted to flee the flames and fumes through the only available exit.
Within minutes, the hall had completely burned down and the roof had caved in.
Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, described the deadly blaze as “a complete and total catastrophe, a catastrophe that was very, very painful,” while speaking during the funeral processions of the victims in a graveyard just outside Hamdaniya.
“It is not just about investment and money, they should hold responsibility [for safety standards],” Sako said.
A large crowd of Assyrian Christians held funeral processions and chanted prayers in Syriac and Arabic at a Hamdaniya graveyard as a seemingly endless number of coffins were being held high above the crowd, being overlooked by a large portrait of Jesus Christ as they made their final journey to be laid to rest.
Shortly after Sako’s speech, Kurdish authorities in Erbil announced the arrest of three owners of the banquet hall and handed them over to the Iraqi authorities.
Witnesses from Hamdaniya told Rudaw English anonymously that there is not a single family in the district who does not have relatives who perished in the flames, with the small but tightly-packed Christian community of the district reeling from the disaster, on their knees at the scale of the devastation.
What happened at Hamdaniya’s wedding?
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) September 27, 2023
Video by @AlandQaradaxxi pic.twitter.com/VKHuzvtDvf
With hospitals above peak capacity in the town and medical supplies running out, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) dispatched several ambulances to Hamdaniya late into the night, as well as emergency medical teams and medical supplies, including much-needed burning ointments.
The degree of burns on the injured victims’ bodies was 50%, with the least-affected victims still having 40% of their bodies burned. Due to the severity of the injuries, hospitals remained at full capacity and no victims were discharged at a quick pace.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani directed the formation of an investigative committee into the incident to uncover the circumstances and the areas of negligence, as Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul-Amir al-Shammari blamed the Haytham banquet hall for lacking proper safety and security measures.
During a visit to an Erbil hospital treating victims of the incident, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani expressed his condolences for the “big humanitarian disaster” in Hamdaniya and thanked Kurdish health authorities for initiating a swift response to the tragedy.
“A serious investigation has to be conducted … it is truly a big disaster,” President Barzani said.
Assyrian aid organizations, such as the Assyrian Aid Society and Shlama Foundation, around the world soon launched fundraisers for the families of the victims, raising nearly $200,000.
For the next three days, we will be mourning all the victims lost in the tragic Baghdeda fire. Rest in peace to Shamiram Behnam Polis and her two children 💔 pic.twitter.com/4C14hpcKpu
— Shlama Foundation (@ShlamaF) September 27, 2023
Iraq announced a three-day mourning period across the country for the victims of the tragic blaze, a call that was soon followed by the KRG.
The bride and groom, named Haneen and Rivan, survived the fire after escaping through the kitchen door, contradicting initial reports that they had died. They are being treated at an Erbil hospital, where sources told Rudaw that their psychological situation is “dire.”
In war-scarred Iraq, safety standards are often ignored as sub-standard buildings, such as Hamdaniya’s Haytham Hall, lack adequate fire extinguishers and emergency facilities such as evacuation doors.
The country is known for frequent fires in the summer, whether in government buildings or private facilities, but a recent string of fires at this time of the year raises concerns about the adequacy of the preventative measures that the government pledged to tackle over two years ago, after a series of blazes destroyed major hospitals, leaving dozens dead and injured.
Iraqi civil defense said that the usage of plastic panels for the hall’s ceiling was illegal, “highly flammable, and contravened safety standards.”
“The fire caused parts of the ceiling to collapse due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials,” civil defense authorities said in a statement.
Hamdaniya is one of Iraq’s only Christian-majority districts, located in the Nineveh Plains near Mosul, a historic Assyrian region. Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, it was taken over by Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists during their brazen sweep of northern Iraq, where they declared a so-called “caliphate” and inflicted grave atrocities on minority groups, including Christians.
The Assyrian Christian towns were retaken by Iraqi and Kurdish security forces in 2017 when ISIS was driven out of the area. Hamdaniya was visited by Pope Francis during his historic visit to Iraq in 2021.
Recovery has been slow, with many Christians unwilling to go back to their hometowns which their ancestors have called home for millennia, citing security concerns, the presence of foreign militias in the areas, and the lack of economic opportunities.
Hamdaniya is one of the towns recovering best from the reign of ISIS, with its churches being gradually rebuilt and its remaining inhabitants in Iraq slowly returning.
However, residents now say that the inferno, which struck at a day that should have known little but celebration and joy, has mired them in intense grief and decimated their tightly-packed community.
