KUT, Iraq – July 17 — A quiet evening meant for family dinners and shopping turned into a nightmare in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut, where a massive fire engulfed the newly opened Hyper Mall, leaving at least 60 people dead and scores injured or missing.
What should have been a celebration of a new community hub became a heartbreaking scene of chaos and grief. Parents, children, elderly couples—all found themselves trapped in a building that quickly turned from vibrant to deadly.
The fire broke out late Tuesday evening, reportedly starting on the first floor and rapidly spreading throughout the five-storey mall. With only five days since its grand opening, the Hyper Mall became the scene of Iraq’s latest preventable disaster.
Authorities confirmed that most of the victims died of suffocation, many found in bathrooms where they had fled in search of safety. Of the 61 reported dead, 14 bodies were so badly burned they remain unidentified.
Grieving families are still searching for missing loved ones, their pain echoing through the streets and hospital corridors. Videos circulating on social media capture the heartbreak—men sobbing on the floor, mothers collapsing in despair, and children calling out for parents who will never come home.
One such heartbroken voice is Nasir al-Quraishi, a doctor who lost five family members in the blaze. “We went just to escape the power outages,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. “Then the air conditioner exploded, and the fire spread. We couldn’t escape.”
Rescue teams managed to save more than 45 people, but the scene remains grim. The overwhelmed hospitals are struggling to cope with the influx, and forensic workers are working tirelessly to identify the charred remains.
Wasit Governor Mohammed al-Miyahi has declared three days of mourning. He vowed legal action against the mall’s owner and the building contractor, saying, “This tragedy is not just a fire—it’s a wake-up call. Safety cannot be an afterthought.”
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has ordered a full investigation to determine what went wrong and prevent such devastating incidents in the future. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani also expressed his deep condolences to the grieving families.
In Iraq, where years of war and neglect have left infrastructure vulnerable, fires like these are all too common. Last year, over 100 people were killed in a similar incident during a wedding in Nineveh, and in 2021, a hospital fire claimed more than 60 lives.
But numbers don’t capture the raw human pain—the broken families, the empty chairs at dinner tables, the dreams that vanished in smoke.
This isn’t just about regulations. It’s about accountability. It’s about lives that should have been protected but were lost to systemic negligence.
