Seventeen-year-old girl dies in Kurdistan Region IDP camp fire

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A seventeen-year-old Sinjari (Shingal) girl died on Thursday, while three of her siblings are currently under intensive care after their family’s tent caught fire in one of Duhok province’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp.

“Since firefighters and ambulances were unavailable at the camp, the girl could not be taken in time to a hospital to receive treatment,” a Kurdistan 24 correspondent reported from the Simele town’s Khanke Camp.

Over 16,000 people, some 2,800 families, live in 3,120 tents in the camp.

“An electrical fire burned down the family’s tent, where the girl and her relatives lived in for the past four years,” a witness told Kurdistan 24.

“We have been asking for firefighting vehicles and ambulances to be stationed here for over a year, but so far, it has not been done,” Pir Alw, the manager of the camp, pointed out.

The camp had also sustained considerable damage during heavy rainfalls early in May, prompting the Barzani Charity Foundation to call for urgent aid for IDPs.

In a statement in April, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) appealed to the international community’s support in providing help with funding projects in refugee and IDP camps alike.

The statement warned that without increased funding, the KRG and its national and international partners would not be able to provide crucial services and assistance to those in need.

Hundreds of thousands of Yezidis (Ezidis) remain displaced in the Kurdistan Region despite the liberation of Shingal from the Islamic State (IS) in November 2015.

The fight against IS destroyed up to 80 percent of Shingal, a predominantly Ezidi city located in the province of Nineveh, not far from the Syrian border.

Instability and insufficient infrastructure and public services have caused Shingal to remain, as it has been described, a ghost town.

Editing by Nadia Riva