Fire breakout destroys IDPs residences in Erbil’s Harsham Camp

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An inferno breaking out early on Tuesday morning has destroyed at least six houses inside Harsham Camp 1 in Kurdistan Region’s Erbil province, according to a firefighting authority.

The fire broke out around 5:30 AM (local time) in the camp, where the security forces fired warning shots to wake up the residents of the Yezidi internally displaces persons (IDPs) community, a local security official recalled to Kurdistan 24.

No causalities have been reported so far, according to initial reports.

Having destroyed six sandwich panels-made houses, the fire’s cause has not been identified yet.

This is the second fire incident to take place in Harsham Camp, which used to house Christian IDPs fleeing from ISIS. The camp consists of 150 houses.

A fire breakout in Duhok’s Bajid Kandala on Sunday similarly destroyed a number of tents of the Yezidi displaced population.

An electrical short circuit is usually blamed for breakouts in the camps that suffer from infrastructural issues.

The majority of displacement camps are still located in the Kurdistan Region, which is still the biggest host of the displaced populations in Iraq.

Over a million refugees and IDPs were once hosted by Iraq’s semi-autonomous region across different provinces.

Additional reporting by Renas A. Saeed