At least 11 premature babies were killed Wednesday in a fire that tore through one of Baghdad’s largest maternity hospitals, medical and security sources said.
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Firefighters took three hours to douse the flames at the facility, which is the main hospital in western Baghdad and houses emergency care and teaching facilities.
The blaze broke out overnight inside the maternity department at the Yarmouk hospital, in the west of the city.
“One father, 30-year-old Hussein Omar, a construction worker, said he lost twins in the blaze, a baby boy and a girl born last week”. She said she was not given a chance to rescue her newborn.
The director of the Yarmouk hospital told reporters the fire appeared to be caused by electrical wiring, The Associated Press reports.
“I went to the other hospital, they are not there, so where are they?” he said.
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Pictures posted on social media showed the hospital in a state of neglect, with cockroaches crawling out from between broken tiles, dustbins overflowing with rubbish, dirty toilets and patients lying on stretchers in the courtyard. The 36-year old had spent more than a year visiting hospitals in and outside Iraq trying to conceive.
