Fire Destroys Multiple Shops in Duhok Market in Northern Iraq
(AWP) - Duhok Civil Defence teams managed to quell a massive blaze that burned down many stores in the city’s Chale bazaar in northern Iraq, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported on Monday.
The fire caused extensive financial damage to the bazaar, which includes 140 stores though no injuries were reported according to INA.
However, Iraqi media quoted the Civil Defence as saying that four people were wounded and dozens of stores were burned down in the blaze.
A Civil Defence spokesman confirmed that the cause of the fire remains unknown and that a special team has been formed to investigate the incident and assess the extent of the damage.
Ayman Hussein, a store owner in the bazaar, said, “At three o’clock in the morning, our friends told us that the market was on fire, so I came and found that my store had completely burned down. There were goods in the store worth between $20,000 and $25,000 that had been completely burned – nothing was left of them. We demand that the government authorities compensate us.”