Was blaze of Iraqi wedding party ‘deliberate’ against Christian minority?

The Syriac Catholic archbishop of Mosul and its dependencies, Archbishop Benedict Younan Hanno, has rejected the results of the investigations into the incident of a wedding party blaze in which hundreds were killed in the majority Christian district of Hamdaniya in northeastern Nineveh Governorate, Iraq, amid accusations that the incident was deliberate.

A massive fire swept through the Al Haitham wedding hall in Hamdaniya on September 26, claiming the lives of 119 people and injuring others, according to the latest data on the death toll released by the Nineveh Governorate Health Department in a statement on October 3. The government launched an immediate investigation into the incident.

“There are illogical things in this investigation,” said the archbishop in a press conference, raising a question about who the real culprit is. He also called for an international investigation and for the dismissal of ministers who proved to be derelict in their duties.

The results of the government-assigned investigation committee revealed that the fire was caused by fireworks, and because the hall’s ceiling, carpets and curtains were made of flammable materials, in addition to the presence of alcohol, the fire spread fast, while the hall itself had no emergency exits.

The committee called for the dismissal of five local officials for their negligence and dereliction of duty. It also demanded to refer three of them to a trial, announced Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir Al-Shammari in a press conference on October 1, as well as to sack the directors of the Nineveh Fire Department and Civil Defense.

At the press conference, the head of the investigation committee, Major General Saad Faleh Kassar Al-Dulaimi, said the capacity of the hall was 500 people, while the number of guests was bigger than this, adding that about 600 people were evacuated.

Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Democratic Party refuted the results of the investigations, calling them “shameful.”  The leader of the party, Wafa Muhammad, said that investigative committees are always subject to political parties and are used for party and personal interests. He added that the committee failed to determine the real corrupt person responsible, Al Rafidain newspaper reported.

In comments to Rudwa Arabia Network, some relatives of the victims expressed their anger, saying, “Where is the government? How come a 600-meter-square hall can light on fire in only five minutes? How was the electricity cut off after the breakout of the fire? One of the relatives said that the Christians are threatened, saying that they were told by someone, ‘If you lost 150 people, next time will be 300.’”

The groom, Revan, lost 15 relatives in the incident, while his bride, Haneen, lost 10 relatives. The couple said that as soon as the fire erupted, the electricity went out. 

The bride added that there was only one fire extinguisher in the hall, but it did not work at all. When they got out from the hall through the kitchen, a big explosion occurred inside, Sky News Arabiya reported on September 30.

In response to accusations by the Christians, Interior Ministry spokesperson Khaled El Mahanna told Iraq 24 TV on October 2 that the results of the investigations were based on reports by forensic laboratory and chemical experts, besides checking the devices that caused the fire. “The investigations relied on scientific bases,” he said.

He added that the results showed that there were no criminal or deliberate causes behind the outbreak of the fire, but they revealed dereliction of duty by some administrative workers and the owner of the party hall.

The number of Christians in Iraq is estimated to be between 500,000 and 700,000 people, said former parliamentarian Joseph Saliwa in comments to Independent Arabia on April 16, noting that there is no accurate data on the exact number. Meanwhile, the Shlama Foundation, an Iraqi humanitarian aid NGO that helps the Christians of Iraq, said that the number of the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian people in Iraq reached 141,286 people.