Fire kills 4 refugee children in Iraq's Kirkuk

By Hussein al-Amir

BAGHDAD

Four refugee children died on Tuesday when their tent caught fire in Iraq's northern Kirkuk province, according to a local police officer.

"Four children from the same family lost their lives when their tent caught fire in Nazrawa camp," Police Captain Hamed al-Obaidi told Anadolu Agency.

He said the parents of the dead children sustained burns and were transferred to hospital for treatment.

Local media outlets said a heater had exploded and caused the blaze.

In the summer of 2014, the Daesh terrorist group seized one third of Iraq's territory and left around 5.8 million people internally displaced.

After a three-year war, the Iraqi government declared late in 2017 that Daesh's military presence in Iraq had been all but ended through operations backed by a U.S.-led international alliance.

However, many displaced people are still unable to return to their areas of origin which have been destructed by the war and lack basic infrastructure while some of them are not totally secured.

Reporting by