A girl in the predominantly Ezidi district of Shingal (Sinjar), west of Ninewa province, died in a fire accident, raising the death toll from fire-related incidents in the area to 4 people in less than two weeks.
Marteen Bro, 15 had mistakenly used gasoline to set fire to weeds outside their home in Shingal’s Gohbal residential compound when the situation went out of control.
“Before noon on Sunday, June 16, Marteen wanted to burn weeds outside their house, but instead of Kerosene she used gasoline, which caused the fire to spread too fast,” Hadi Hassan, a relative of the victim told KirkukNow.
Marteen died later in hospital from complications after the serious burn injuries she sustained. Her body was taken to Duhok forensic medicine department.
Earlier on June 8, three farmers died while attempting to put out fires erupted near Shingal’s Bork residential compound.
Barakat Eesa said that in addition to the fatalities, an estimated 825 donums of wheat and barley croplands have burned in the past two weeks in Sinune, a sub-district associated with Shingal.
On June 13, The Iraqi parliament decided by a majority of votes to compensate farmers who have been affected by farmland fires. The compensation will be offered after a follow-up committee assesses the damages.
According to figures released by the General Directorate of Civil Defense, during the period from May 8 until June 4 of this year, 44 fire incidents have been recorded in Ninewa province damaging 11,183 donums of crop fields, mostly located in Talafar.
In the past few weeks, a series of crop fires broke out in a number of Iraqi provinces, including Kirkuk, Ninewa and other territories disputed by the federal government and the Kurdistan regional government.
In addition to the huge crop damages, several fatalities related to the fire incidents were also reported.
