Fire Kill 58 People in Baghdad Covid Hospital

Category: World News

Fifty-eight people were killed in a fire that ravaged at a Covid-19 hospital in the Iraqi capital overnight on Sunday, according to an official toll.

“The number of deaths as a result of the Ibn al-Khatib hospital fire was 58, of which 28 were on ventilators” being treated for Covid-19, Ali Bayati, a member of Iraq’s Human Rights Commission, said.

The head of Iraq's Civil Defence, Major General Kadhim Bohan, told state media the fire broke out in the hospital's intensive-care unit, on a floor "designated for pulmonary resuscitation".

So far, emergency crew had rescued 90 out of 120 patients and relatives, state news agency INA quoted him as saying.

About "30 patients were in the intensive care unit", which was reserved for the most severe cases of Covid-19 in Baghdad, a hospital source told the AFP news agency.

The injured and patients who weren't hurt have been taken by ambulance to other hospitals nearby.