In a video statement to the U.K.’s SkyNews, the bride and groom, Revan Isho, 27, and Haneen, 18, addressed the disaster that took place on their wedding day.
“We are dead inside. We are numb,” Isho said. “I grabbed my wife and began to drag her. I kept dragging and trying to get her out of the kitchen entrance. As people were fleeing, people were trampling on her. Her legs are injured.”
“She’s lost 10 relatives,” Isho said of his wife. “Her loved ones, her mom, her brother, she can’t speak.”
Church responds
More in Middle East - Africa
Hundreds from the community gathered to hold mass funerals the day after the wedding and on Friday.
Archbishop Benedict Younan Hanno, the Syriac Catholic archbishop of Mosul and its dependencies, told EWTN News on Wednesday that “the situation today is very tragic.”
“These people who died were from my parish,” Hanno said, explaining that more than 80 of the Christian families in the town lost loved ones.
“I hope that efforts will be intensified in helping the injured,” Hanno added. “The next stage requires intensified efforts between all parties to assist and relieve the injured. I hope that assistance will be provided in transferring the injured to hospitals that are more qualified to ensure their recovery as quickly as possible.”
The patriarch of the Chaldean Church, Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, also expressed his support for the devastated Christian community, describing the wedding fire as a catastrophe that had never occurred in the history of Christians in Iraq.
Sako, who has been a longtime voice for the rights of Christians in Iraq, indicated that “corruption” may be to blame for the fire killing so many of the guests.
“Even this wedding hall was not devoid of corruption,” Sako said. “This catastrophe will remain alive in the conscience of the Iraqis through their solidarity and standing as one team in the face of tragedies.”
(Story continues below)
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government Masrour Barzani also announced a general mourning in Iraq and the Kurdistan region.
Sunni and Shia Muslims in the region and Iraq offered their condolences to the Christian community, canceling celebrations for the birth of Muhammad and announcing days of mourning.
Syriac Catholics are Eastern rite Christians in full communion with Rome.
Peter Pinedo is a DC Correspondent for CNA. A graduate of Franciscan University, Peter previously worked for Texas Right to Life. He is a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve.