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A wedding day is supposed to be a beautiful and joyous day, but the tragedy which befell this Iraqi couple's big day will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Revan and Haneen 's wedding day ended in disaster when more than 100 wedding guests were killed and about 150 people were injured and hospitalised after a fire broke out at their reception in Qaraqosh, the biggest Christian town in Iraq, near Mosul.
Haneen (18) lost her entire family - three brothers, all her uncles and her young cousins. Revan (27) lost 15 relatives, including his mother – in the blaze.
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“Inside we are dead. We are numb,” he says.
The bride and groom were in the middle of their slow dance when fireworks were lit inside the hall, setting the ceiling alight.
Thinking it was an electrical fire, the owner of the hall reportedly switched off the electricity, plunging the hall into darkness and causing even more panic and chaos.
"The ceiling caught fire suddenly and it spread everywhere because it was all made of sandwich panels, vinyl sheets and fabric. Everything caught fire and started falling on people's heads. Nobody was able to get out," an eyewitness told Iraqi Kurdish news.
Revan had to drag his bride through the chaos as she couldn’t run in her wedding dress.
“I kept dragging her and trying to get her out of the kitchen entrance. As people were fleeing, people were trampling on her. Her legs are injured,” he told Sky News.
"Fireworks were the main cause of the fire," said interior minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari, adding that flammable decorations hanging from the ceiling fuelled the blaze.
General Saad Faleh, the head of the investigative committee which is probing the fire, said that four pyrotechnic devices shot showers of sparks four metres into the air.
The hall’s capacity was 500 people, but the number of guests at the wedding was almost double, which made it nearly impossible to use the emergency doors.
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Fourteen people, including the hall’s owner and four others involved in setting off the fireworks, were arrested but some have since been released.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has demanded "the toughest punishments permitted by law for those responsible for negligence or failings that led to this tragic fire".
Instead of going on honeymoon, the couple had to bury their loved ones.
“Our relatives, our friends, our loved ones are all gone,” Revan says.
SOURCES: BBC.COM, DAILYMAIL.CO.UK, NEWS.SKY.COM
