Baghdad (AFP)
More than 80 people perished on Sunday, torn from their respirators, suffocated by smoke or charred in the fire of a hospital dedicated to Covid-19 in Baghdad, a tragedy born of negligence which earned the Minister of Health a suspension .
"It only took three minutes for the fire to gain most of the floors," said Civil Defense.
According to a latest report from the Ministry of the Interior, "82 people were killed and 110 injured" in a country with a dilapidated health system for decades.
The toll is also heavy because the firefighters did not immediately arrive at the hospital, in the agricultural and remote periphery of Baghdad.
"We felt an explosion. There were between 140 and 150 people in the hospital. We saw the fire and we were able to save no one," Bakr Kazem recounts in tears, accompanying his father's coffin to Najaf.
In this holy city south of Baghdad where the vast majority of Iraqi Shiites are buried, funeral processions have followed one another throughout the day.
Amir, 35, was luckier.
He tells AFP to have "narrowly saved his brothers who were in the hospital".
"These are the people who released the wounded", he insists while in the darkness of the night, in the middle of the month of Ramadan, for hours, the crowd of patients and relatives who tried to escape from the hospital by narrow service stairs, was only helped by residents who came to lend a hand.
The firefighters, them, were struggling in the trap of Ibn al-Khatib: "the hospital does not have a fire-fighting system and the fire has spread through the false ceilings", explained the Civil Defense.
"Most of the victims died because they were displaced and deprived of ventilators. Others were suffocated by smoke."
- Hashtag "resignation" -
Since the tragedy, the hashtag "Resignation of the Minister of Health", which has not been subscribed to since the fire, is at the top of the keywords on Twitter in Iraq.
Prime Minister Moustafa al-Kazimi, who proclaimed three days of national mourning and awarded 10 million dinars (about 5,700 euros) to each victim's family, answered halfway.
He "suspended" and "made available to investigators" the Minister of Health Hassan al-Tamimi, a close friend of the very turbulent Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr.
The same sanction was applied to the governor of Baghdad, Mohammed Jaber, and to the boss of Health for the east of Baghdad.
"The results of the investigation will be presented to the government within five days," according to a statement from Mr. Kazimi's office.
The director of the hospital and the heads of security and technical maintenance at Ibn al-Khatib were summoned for questioning during the night.
The head of government knows that he is facing in ambush pro-Iran who keep attacking him: again Sunday evening, the most radical, the Hezbollah brigades, demanded the resignation of his government.
Mr. Kazimi replied on Twitter that it was necessary to "avoid political games around this national disaster".
The anger in Iraq comes from attributing the fire to negligence, which goes hand in hand with the endemic corruption in the country, as noted by President of the Republic Barham Saleh.
“Ibn al-Khatib's tragedy is the result of years of undermining state institutions through corruption and mismanagement,” he tweeted.
- A crime" -
For the Government Human Rights Commission, it is a "crime" against "patients harassed by the Covid-19 who put their lives in the hands of the Ministry of Health, and who instead of being cured perished in flames".
This is the case of Ali Ibrahim, 52 years old.
"He had just spent 12 days in the hospital and was due out on Saturday night. He was only waiting for the result of the last Covid-19 test," one of his relatives told AFP.
The UN mission in Iraq expressed its "shock", while Pope Francis, who was in Iraq in early March, called for "prayers" for the victims.
As in echo, Sunday evening, a new fire was on everyone's lips: that of a shopping center in Kirkuk (center), for which no victim had been identified immediately.
Covid-19 cases exceeded one million in Iraq on Wednesday, or one in 40 inhabitants, with more than 15,000 dead.
The country, probably due to its young population, records a relatively low number of deaths.
To avoid dilapidated hospitals, patients generally prefer to install an oxygen cylinder in their homes.
The vaccination campaign was launched in early March but the population, who shuns masks, remains very skeptical.
Out of nearly 650,000 doses of different vaccines - almost all received in the form of a donation or via the international Covax program - around 300,000 were administered.
© 2021 AFP