Thirty-eight bodies retrieved from wedding inferno remain unidentified

ERBIL, Kurdistan - Nineveh health directorate on Friday announced that the bodies of 38 people who lost their lives in the tragic fire of Hamdaniya remain unidentified at Nineveh's forensics medicine department, adding that some of the injured are in critical conditions.

“So far 38 bodies in the Nineveh forensics medicine department remain unidentified,” Ahmad Nazim Dubardani, Deputy general director of Nineveh health directorate told Rudaw, adding that of two of the bodies in question, only the skeletons remained.

Dubardani noted that some of the injured, who suffered severe burns and smoke inhalation, are in critical conditions. DNA samples of the unidentified victims have been taken and sent to Baghdad for tests, according to Dubardani, who added that the tests will require some time to be processed. 

Over a hundred people lost their lives and hundreds more were injured late Tuesday when a fire erupted inside a banquet hall hosting a packed wedding in the Assyrian Christian-majority district of Hamdaniya, around 45 kilometers southeast of Iraq’s second-largest northern city of Mosul.

Iraq on Wednesday announced a three-day mourning period across the country for the victims of the tragic blaze, a call that was soon echoed by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Funeral processions for dozens of the victims are being held in Hamdaniya since Wednesday.

The exact number of victims remains unclear. On Friday, Nineveh’s general directorate of health announced that 101 died in the fire, while a day earlier Iraqi Red Crescent Society told Rudaw that according to the latest statistics at their disposal, the number reached 116.