AMMAN —
His Majesty King Abdullah on Sunday sent a cable to
Iraqi President Barham Salih, expressing condolences over the victims of the
fire that broke out on Saturday in a hospital in Baghdad.
اضافة اعلان
In the cable, King Abdullah expressed his sympathies to
President Salih and the bereaved families, on behalf of Jordan’s people and
government, wishing the injured a speedy recovery, a
Royal Court statement
said.
Earlier in the day, the Foreign Ministry expressed “the deepest
condolences” to the government and people of Iraq over the victims of a fire
that broke out in a hospital in Baghdad overnight.
A fire caused by an oxygen tank explosion at a COVID-19
hospital in Baghdad took at least 82 lives and forced some people to leap
through windows out of the burning building, witnesses and authorities said on
Sunday.
As rescuers combed the smoke-charred building, Prime
Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi blamed negligence and suspended his Health Minister
Hassan Al-Tamimi pending an inquiry into Saturday’s blaze at the Ibn Khatib
hospital, Reuters news agency reported.
Some 110 people were also injured, Interior Ministry
spokesman Khalid Al-Muhanna said. Most of the dead and injured were patients,
according to Reuters.
Already decimated by war and sanctions, Iraq’s healthcare
system has struggled to cope with the coronavirus crisis, which has killed
15,257 people and infected more than 1 million.
Security forces cordoned off the hospital, in the Diyala
Bridge area of the Iraqi capital, where charred debris and shattered glass
littered the ground outside, according to Reuters.
As the flames spread on Saturday, relatives scrambled to
save loved ones, with some jumping to safety.
“I carried my brother out to the street. Then I came (back)
and went up to the last floor which wasn’t burning. I found a girl suffocating,
about 19 years old ... she was about to die,” Ahmed Zaki told Reuters.
“I took her on my shoulders and I ran down ... Doctors
jumped onto the cars. Everyone was jumping. And I kept going up from there, got
people and came down again.”
While many surviving patients were moved to other hospitals,
several families were still outside the Ibn Khatib hours after the blaze was extinguished,
still looking for relatives.
An emergency cabinet meeting called by Kadhimi ordered an
investigation with findings due in five days.
The governor of Baghdad and another senior health ministry
official were also suspended and referred to investigators.
“Such an incident is evidence of negligence and therefore I
directed that an investigation be launched immediately,” the prime minister
said in a statement, adding that the hospital’s manager and heads of security
and maintenance had been detained.
During the coronavirus crisis, hospitals have been
struggling from an influx of patients and short supplies.
“As soon as you arrived at the main entrance [of the
hospital], it was suffocating. No one could climb upstairs,” said another
witness, Mohammed Ali, 23, a student who lost his uncle. “The whole hospital
was gutted, all burnt down.”
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