Iraqi Christian leaders on Monday demanded an international investigation into a fire that killed 113 people at a wedding in a predominantly Christian town last week.
Not only are the Christian leaders displeased with how the Iraqi government handled the situation, but some of them said the deadly fire was “intentional.”
Father Boutros Sheeto, an Iraqi Syriac Christian priest who lost ten members of his own family in the terrible blaze, claimed the fire was set deliberately during a telephone interview with the Associated Press (AP) on Monday.
“We reject the idea that the cause of the fire was an accident. We are confident that it was intentional and therefore we demand an international investigation,” Father Sheeto said.
One of the victims was Sheeto’s Iraqi American sister, who had traveled to Iraq from Arizona to be at the wedding.
Sheeto found bitter irony in his city’s ability to survive occupation by the Islamic State, only to suffer horrific casualties from incidents like the wedding fire.
“In this country, we always wait until a disaster occurs and then deal with the results. Our home is now empty of family because of greed and corruption,” he said.
Another member of the clergy who questioned the cause of the devastating fire was Chaldean Catholic Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, who described the fire as “the act of someone who sold his conscience and nation for a specific agenda.”
The Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Benedictus Younan Hanno, called for an investigation conducted under “the supervision of international investigators.” He flatly rejected the official explanation that the blaze was started by improperly handled fireworks.
The fire broke out at a wedding party in the northern Iraqi town of Qaraqosh on September 26. Qaraqosh is considered the largest Christian city in Iraq. It had about 50,000 residents at its peak, mostly Assyrian Christians, but many of them fled or were killed when the Islamic State conquered Qaraqosh in 2014. The wedding venue was built in 2016, shortly after Qaraqosh was recaptured from ISIS.
An eyewitness estimated there were 1,000 to 1,100 guests gathered at the Haitham Royal Wedding Hall, a sizable venue on the outskirts of town, when the bride and groom began their traditional slow dance. A firework struck the ceiling and touched off a blaze that swiftly spread to consume the entire hall.
“Everything caught fire and started falling on people’s heads. Nobody was able to get out,” the witness said.
A video clip filmed by one of the attendees using a drone showed there were fireworks on display in the hall during the slow dance, but they seemed under control until some of the flowers and ceiling decorations caught fire and fell upon the screaming guests.
The power in the hall reportedly went out as the fire spread, making it difficult for panicked guests to escape. Several survivors, including the bride and groom, said they lost multiple family members in the conflagration. Some of the dead were children.
The Iraqi government declared on Sunday that the fire was “accidental, and one hundred percent an act of God.”
Investigators said the pyrotechnic fountains visible in the video clip from the wedding launched sparks high enough to set the ceiling on fire. They attributed the high death toll to the massively overcrowded hall, which was built to hold 500 people at most, and said the power was deliberately cut by the hall’s owner because he thought an electrical short circuit was the cause of the fire.
Iraqi officials also noted the interior of the hall was covered with metal composite “sandwich panels” that are notoriously unreliable during a fire.
Iraqi police arrested 14 people after the fire, including the owner of the hall and the employees who set off the fireworks. Several public officials lost their jobs, including the fire chief and the mayor of Qaraqosh, at the direction of the Iraqi central government.
“The mayor was negligent: The hall was built illegally on the land, but the mayor authorized its going into service without the approval of other public agencies,” Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari explained when announcing the results of the fire investigation on Sunday.
Local civil defense officials said the owner of the wedding hall had been warned his ceiling panels were a dangerous fire hazard and was told to replace them by October. The officials said the Civil Defense agency did not have the authority to revoke the hall’s license for failing to comply.
Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani declared three days of national mourning for the victims and visited “the injured and families of the victims” two days after the blaze. Sudani vowed to push for “the toughest punishments permitted by law for those responsible for negligence or failings that led to this tragic fire.”
“Safety standards within Iraq’s construction sector have often been overlooked, and the nation, grappling with a legacy of infrastructure challenges after decades of conflict, frequently witnesses fatal fires and accidents,” observed Turkey’s Daily Sabah after a planeload of wedding fire survivors were flown to Istanbul for hospital care on Tuesday.
Father Sheeto was unimpressed by the government’s actions thus far.
“The committee just dismissed the mayor and the director of electricity and the director of municipality, as if the corruption of all of Iraq was found in Qaraqosh,” he complained.
“I do not accept that my family’s blood should be exploited by parties and militias and corrupt people and thieves,” he added, alluding to rumors that members of an armed Christian militia called Hasht al-Shaabi will step in to replace the Qaraqosh officials who lost their jobs.
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