Iraq wedding incident: About more than 100 people died in a wedding that caught fire in Qaraqosh, Iraq. Qaraqosh, a Christian community also known as Hamdaniya, has endured Islamic State rule. Qaraqosh is a Nineveh province in northern Iraq. 

On Tuesday, September 26th, 2023, an incident took place at a wedding that was being held in a wedding hall in Qaraqosh, Iraq. About more than 900 people were present in the wedding hall when the Iraq wedding incident took place. 

The wedding incident took place at about 10:45pm when the fire started to blaze. At that moment, the bride and groom were dancing on the stage when suddenly a fire cracked. 

Through sources, it was known that the fireworks were known to be the cause of the disaster. The fireworks, which were lit during the couple’s slow dance, caught fire in the ceiling. 

After talking to the bride and groom, it was known that about 150 people are still injured and more than 100 people have died, most of whom are relatives. 

The bride, Haneen, 18, and the groom, Revan, 27, say that they are dead inside. According to the groom, the bride, Haneen, has stopped talking since the incident took place.

The groom says that he lost the lives of 15 of his relatives, and his bride “can’t speak” after the loss of 10 of her family members, including her brother and mother.

The couple was seen dancing while flaming objects fell from the roof in a video that was released soon after the incident. According to the groom, he believes that these weren’t the fireworks that caught fire, but the ceiling had something in it. He believed that it was a short-circuit in the ceiling that caught fire. Furthermore, he added that they felt the heat from the ceiling, and he immediately looked up at the ceiling as soon as he heard the crackling. 

He further said that a power failure happened there in seconds, and as soon as the power came back, they saw the fire in the ceiling. After that, the people there started to scream and run away. He took away his bride, who was carrying her wedding gown and wasn’t able to run as fast. He grabbed her and headed towards the entrance of the kitchen, where people were running to escape out of the wedding hall. 

According to the bride, she lost her uncle on the spot with his two daughters. Her other uncle died due to this incident, and her father is in a very critical condition, struggling for his life and death. The groom’s aunt died on the spot, and his sister was injured along with her husband, who got serious burns on his body. His uncle lost seven members of his family, and every other day, they hear the news of the dead.

Revan was very shattered and constantly saying things like, ‘why did this happen on his wedding day?’, ‘What was their fault for witnessing such a disaster?’ 

A bride and groom have told Sky News they are "dead inside" after more than 100 people were killed when a fire broke out at their wedding in Iraq's Nineveh province.

Read more: https://t.co/8Kf68OesS2 pic.twitter.com/6swjKC50hN

— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 30, 2023

The bride and groom decided to leave this community after such a tragic incident in their lives. Both of them do not want to live in this city after the disaster. Revan declared that although they are sitting in front of them alive, but they are dead inside. They are physically alive but mentally dead. Whenever they try to celebrate, something bad happens in their lives.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al Sudani condemned on the lives of those who died and contacted the provincial governor of Nineveh to provide all resources to help those impacted by the unfortunate Iraq wedding incident.