At least 12 newborn premature babies have died in a fire that tore through the maternity ward of one of Baghdad’s largest hospitals, medical and security officials say.
Jassem Lateef al-Karkh, from the Baghdad health directorate, says only seven babies could be saved and were taken to another ward in the Iraqi capital.
Health ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Rudeini says the blaze at the Yarmuk hospital in west Baghdad was started by an electrical fault just after midnight.
“Twenty-nine women patients who were in the same ward were evacuated to other hospitals,” he says.
Security services sealed off the area as forensic teams searched the gutted ward and angry relatives massed outside, waiting for information from the authorities. Charred incubators could be seen outside one of the entrances to the hospital, access to which was strictly controlled by the police.
An Iraqi woman walks past burnt incubators standing outside Yarmuk hospital in west Baghdad on August 10, 2016 after an overnight fire tore through the maternity ward, killing at least 12 premature newborn babies. (SABAH ARAR/AFP)
— AFP
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