Blame game starts following the Christian wedding tragedy in Qaraqosh
Local officials and electric maintenance staff are blamed for the tragedy in Qaraqosh. Locals criticise the official version of events, pointing the finger at Rayan the Chaldean who wants to use the incident to replace local officials with loyalists. People are demanding an independent commission of enquiry. Patriarch Sako slams “the corruption that is devastating the nation".
Baghdad (AsiaNews) – No sooner were the victims of last week’s tragedy in Qaraqosh, Nineveh Plain, buried, with the pain still raw, that the blame game began in earnest.
The local community, starting with the groom who spoke for the first time over the weekend about the incident, wants an independent commission of enquiry, preferably international, to find out what triggered the devastating fire at a Christian wedding.
In the evening of September 26, as celebrations were well underway, a fire broke out causing the death of at least 119 people, wounding hundreds more and deeply scarring a community now left in mourning, with a sense of distrust and forlorn.
A local broadcaster, Rudaw TV, spoke yesterday with Rivan, the 27-year-old groom, with his father’s supporting him all the time, speaking on his son’s behalf several times. Meanwhile, his 18-year-old bride is still in shock and unable to speak.
For Rivan, the fireworks were not the reason for the tragedy; he wants an international investigation to determine the reason.
"There is nothing left. We are seeing greater and greater sufferings every day, more and more victims," Rivan said. For him and his family, leaving is becoming a real option.
His father wonders how they can look others in the eyes, after their families were killed at his son’s wedding. Still, "thankfully the people are all by our side,” Rivan said.
The investigators want to see at least six local and provincial officials fired for failing to enforce safety regulations in the hall that caught fire, even before and during the construction of the building in which it is located.
Flammable material was widely used to build the hall, which had no emergency exits and fire extinguishers in case of fire. When the fire did break out, almost a thousand people were present, twice its legal capacity.
The list of officials to be removed include the town’s mayor, the head of the local municipal administration, and the head of the electricity maintenance department.
Preliminary evidence suggests that the owner or employees lit the fireworks that sent sparks up four metres high, which set fire to some of the decorations hanging from the ceiling and others, apparently, twined around the chandeliers. Sparks set fire to the highly flammable ceiling panels.
Iraqi Interior Minister al-Shammari said the hall’s owner, thinking that it was a short circuit, cut off power and plunged the hall into darkness, causing "chaos, panic and a stampede."
Given the scale of the tragedy, few locals believe it was an accident. Some believe that it was part of a plan to replace local officials with loyalists of the self-styled Christian leader, Rayan Kildani, known as "Rayan the Chaldean", who went head on against the Chaldean patriarch himself.
Hit with US sanctions for human rights abuses, as well as corruption, Kildani heads the Babylon Movement, a paramilitary group linked to Iran.
Local resentment has also spilled over into open protest against the Minister of Immigration and the Displaced, Evan Jabro, a Christian, who was prevented from visiting the scene of the tragedy, with videos of the protest posted online and social media.
“The committee just dismissed the mayor and the director of electricity and the director of the municipality, as if the corruption of all of Iraq was found in Qaraqosh,” said Rev Boutros Shito, a Syriac Catholic priest in Qaraqosh who lost relatives in the fire.
“I do not accept that my family’s blood should be exploited by parties and militias and corrupt people and thieves,” Father Shito said.
Amid the tensions, Chaldean Primate Card Louis Raphael Sako, also spoke out, calling for justice and truth. On the patriarchate’s website, he posted his reflections, slamming "the corruption that is devastating the nation".
He blames militias who "fear neither God nor the government", while the Iraqis "are tired of slogans and promises without results on the ground.”
The cardinal notes that in the official version of the event, fireworks are blamed. Instead, he is leaning more towards a deliberate act by an international actor that “sold” its conscience and the country as part of a "specific plan".
For this reason, he wants to see a crisis unit set up to investigate "objectively and wisely" and calls on the Iraqi Church, in all its components, to seek true unity which is the only force to assert rights and obtain the truth.
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