Rising public anger over Iraq’s healthcare system after ward fire

Nasireyah residents demand officials resign as deaths rise to 64 after Covid hospital inferno

The death toll from an overnight inferno in a Covid hospital ward in southern Iraq has risen to 64, amid rising anger and questions about the competence of the country's health sector.

The blaze was the second in a coronavirus unit in the past three months. More than 80 people died in a Baghdad hospital in April. In both cases the fires were thought to have started after oxygen tanks ignited.