Pinay engineer among dead in Iraq hotel fire

A Filipina worker described as a telecommunications engineer was among at least 40 killed in a fire that hit a hotel in the northern Iraq city of Sulaimaniya early Friday morning (Manila time). Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesperson Eduardo Malaya confirmed in a text message to GMANews.TV the death of a Filipina employee of Asiacell Mobile Company based in Sulaimaniya City. Malaya said the Filipina, whom he did not identify since her family has yet to be informed of her death, was staying at Soma Hotel when the fire occurred Thursday in Iraq. “The Philippine Embassy in Baghdad is being assisted by a Filipino volunteer based in the nearby city of Erbil, and is coordinating with her employer for the repatriation of her remains and entitlement to benefits," Malaya said. Apart from the Filipina fatality, two other Filipino workers survived the fire according to Malaya. Joshua Ermitano is recuperating at a hospital with a broken leg, while Richie Salceda was discharged from the hospital also on Friday, Malaya said. A report on Khaleej Times Friday afternoon quoted the chairman of Asiacell as saying the fire’s casualties were from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. “We lost four engineers from our company, one of them a lady from the Philippines, and three of them men from Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Iraq," said Asiacell chairman Faruk Mula Mustafa as quoted in the report. It added the engineers from Sri Lanka, Philippines and Cambodia were visiting telecommunications engineers. The Filipina was reported as an engineer, but the DFA did not mention her occupation. The Khaleej Times report also quoted hospital officials as saying four Americans were also among the fatalities, while two other Iraqi employees were injured. It added at least three of the victims died when they jumped from the windows of the Soma Hotel to avoid flames, after the fire broke out at around 7:30 GMT Thursday (5:30 a.m. Friday in Manila). A city council official confirmed the death toll and said initial investigations indicated that the blaze, which took seven hours before it was brought under control, was caused by an electrical fault. “Women and children are among the victims of the incident which happened in the Soma Hotel in the centre of the city," said the official, Razgar Ahmed, as quoted in the report. A separate AP report said the hotel was a five-story building, and described the fire as “a harrowing blaze that forced several victims to jump to their deaths to escape the flames." The AP report gave a lower figure of 29 people killed, “nearly half of whom were foreigners." Four women and four children were among the dead, according to the city chief of police. (See: Filipino engineer reported killed in North Iraq hotel fire) Sulaimaniyah, 270 kilometres north of Baghdad, is capital of one of the three provinces that make up Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country. The region is popular with tourists and business has flourished in recent years as it is peaceful, unlike much of Iraq which remains wracked by violence seven years after the US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.—Jerrie M. Abella/JV, GMANews.TV