Iraq hotel fire

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

cores dead in Iraq hotel fire

At least 29 people, including several foreign nationals, have died in a hotel fire in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq, according to hospital sources. Another 22 people were injured in the fire on Thursday at the Soma Hotel in the central area of the city, the sources added. "Most of the people who were killed were choked because of the smoke. They could not get out," Reqot Hama-Rasheed, head of the health department in the city, said. Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Baghdad, said that the building was a small five-storey hotel that attracted lots of foreign business people because it was in a secure area. "There is still confusion over the exact death toll - but we know that the dead include Americans, Europeans, Koreans, Bangladeshis, Arab nationals and various other nationalities," she said. The reported official death toll was first 40 people, but this was later revised down by Najim-Eldeen Qader, the city's police chief. "The official final death toll is 29 killed and 22 wounded," Qader said. "Last night there was chaos at the hospital because of the large numbers of casualties and this could explain the mistake that happened in the death toll."