Arrest warrants issued over Nasiriyah hospital fire

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Arrest warrants have been issued for numerous health officials after a deadly fire in a Nasiriyah coronavirus hospital killed scores of people on Monday.

Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council issued arrest warrants for 13 officials in Dhi Qar governorate’s health directorate, it said on Tuesday. 

A massive fire ripped through Nasiriyah’s al-Hussein hospital on Monday, “caused by the failure to properly handle oxygen bottles,” according to Ammar al-Zamili, spokesperson for the directorate.

According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, 60 people were killed in the blaze, 21 of whom remain unidentified. Dhi Qar authorities place the death toll at 92.

The director of Dhi Qar’s health directorate, the hospital director, and the head of provincial civil defense forces have been suspended pending an investigation into the fire.

The accident is the second deadly blaze to hit Iraq’s battered health care sector this year.

On April 24, the explosion of oxygen cylinder sparked a catastrophic fire in Baghdad’s Ibn al-Khatib hospital for coronavirus patients, killing around 130 people. 

The health minister resigned soon after, and several senior officials were suspended. 

Prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called for the punishment of those involved in hospital fires, whether in Nasiriyah or elsewhere in Iraq.

A close associate of al-Sadr, Salih Muhammad al-Iraqi, has also called for the “immediate dismissal” of Nasiriyah’s governor.

The province has been rocked by demonstrations since the outset of the protest movement in October 2019. Nasiriyah protesters have repeatedly called for the dismissal of local officials in recent months, including Dhi Qar Governor Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, who was appointed after his predecessor stepped down following bloody protests calling for his dismissal.