(ANSAMed) - BEIRUT, APRIL 27 - The death toll from the fire that broke out in the night between Saturday and Sunday in a Covid hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, rises to 130 dead.
The Iraqi government commission for human rights reports, updating the previous toll of 82 dead and 110 injured.
The same commission states in its report made known in the last few hours that many charred bodies are difficult to identify.
The first results of the ongoing investigation revealed that the fire accidentally broke out in the Ibn Khatibdi Baghdad hospital following the explosion of an oxygen cylinder in the covid ward at that time crowded with patients. According to the Commission, however, the area was not only full of patients but also of their visiting families, "a flagrant violation of the most basic anti-covid rules", the report reads.
In addition, it was alleged that some visitors had introduced gas stoves into the patients' rooms to cook food. The government commission itself claims that "the fire-fighting equipment in the hospital was not used because people were unaware of where it was stored." The text of the report also states that many patients were rescued by acquaintances and family members rather than by civil protection teams.
"The civil protection team arrived at the fire site an hour later," the report read as Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Khaled al-Muhanna said Sunday that the team had arrived "three minutes after the fire broke out. 'fire".
At the end of the report, based on non-definitive indications, the Commission affirms that "there is an evident lack of provision of health services to citizens and a flagrant violation of human rights, in particular the right to health care, by the government agencies represented by the Ministry of Health and the hospital administration ". (ANSAMed).
