A fire at a mall in eastern Iraq kills more than 60 people

BAGHDAD (AP) — A fire at a newly opened mall in eastern Iraq’s Wasit province killed more than 60 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said Thursday.

Iraq’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation, in the fire that broke out late Wednesday in the city of Kut. Among the dead were 14 charred bodies that remain unidentified, it said.

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Civil defense teams were able to rescue more than 45 people who were trapped inside the building, the statement said.

The mall, which had opened only a week earlier, was in a five-story building that also contained a restaurant and supermarket.

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The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that people remained missing. Photographs and videos on local media showed the building fully engulfed in flames.

Provincial Gov. Mohammed al-Mayyeh in a statement declared three days of mourning. He said the cause of the fire is under investigation but that legal cases were filed against the building owner and mall owner. He did not specify what the charges were.

“We assure the families of the innocent victims that we will not be lenient with those who were directly or indirectly responsible for this incident,” al-Mayyeh said.

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