Politics

COVID-19: Iraq reports over 4,700 new cases; Iraq-Turkey flights suspended

Iraq’s Health Ministry announced on Friday that it had recorded over 4,700 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, as flights between Turkey and Iraq were again suspended over Turkish concerns about spiking coronavirus cases there.

Halgurd Sherwani 2020/10/02 14:14

middle east Iraq COVID19 Coronavirus Pandemic

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq’s Health Ministry announced on Friday that it had recorded over 4,700 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, as flights between Turkey and Iraq were again suspended over Turkish concerns about spiking coronavirus cases there.

According to official figures, the total number of individuals in Iraq who have contracted the highly infectious disease since it was first detected in the country last February surpassed 372,000 this week. To date, more than 9,200 Iraqis have died from COVID-19.

Friday's infection and fatality figures, as reported by the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad, do not include the most recent developments in the autonomous Kurdistan Region, which has its own health ministry and typically announces results later in the day.

Turkey-Iraq flights suspended

The Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority announced on Thursday that Ankara had decided to suspend all commercial flights between Turkey and Iraq, starting from October 3, and until further notice, because of the concerns of Turkish health authorities about spiking COVID19 figures in its southern neighbor.

The decree allows Iraqis who are currently in Turkey to return to their home country, but there will be no further flights from Iraq into Turkey.

Turkey had previously suspended commercial flights to and from Iraq over health concerns, and flights had resumed only recently.

According to the authoritative database maintained by Johns Hopkins University, Iraq ranks number 15 in terms of countries in the world with coronavirus cases. The high number of infections in Iraq is due to its proximity to Iran, which is number 13, according to the Johns Hopkins’ figures.

Iran was the original epicenter of the virus in the Middle East, due to its close ties to China, where the virus first appeared. Iran now has the highest number of coronavirus cases of any country in the Middle East, followed by Iraq.

Editing by Laurie Mylroie