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HAMDANIYA, Iraq - The relatives of the victims of the Hamdaniya tragedy are bidding their last farewell to their loved ones as the identities of more people who were burnt in the incident are being revealed.
Over 100 people died and hundreds other were injured when a blaze engulfed a banquet hall in Hamdaniya on Tuesday.
A man who lost his wife and daughter and whose son is still missing looked at the sky while the dead bodies of his loved ones were being transported via a pickup truck to be buried, calling on God to help find those responsible for the tragedy.
Forty-five dead bodies were buried on Thursday.
“The number of the martyrs is over 100 and hundreds of injured people are receiving treatment in Mosul, Erbil and Duhok hospitals. We thank all parties and hospitals. Kurdistan Region’s hospitals dispatched ambulances to the incident area to transport the injured and dead bodies,” Rafaat Smo, deputy governor of Nineveh, told Rudaw.
The banquet hall was established in 2019.
The authorities have failed to identify the dead bodies of 54 victims. DNA tests are being carried out to identify them.
Hamdaniya is one of Iraq’s only Christian-majority districts, located in the Nineveh Plains near Mosul, a historic Assyrian region. Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, it was taken over by Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists during their brazen sweep of northern Iraq, where they declared a so-called “caliphate” and inflicted grave atrocities on minority groups, including Christians.
The Assyrian Christian towns were retaken by Iraqi and Kurdish security forces in 2017 when ISIS was driven out of the area. Hamdaniya was visited by Pope Francis during his historic visit to Iraq in 2021.
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