On the night of 24 to 25 April 2021, a fire at the Ibn al-Khatib hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, left at least 82 people dead and 110 others injured.

[4] Ibn al-Khatib was one of three hospitals in Baghdad that were designated at the beginning of the pandemic by the Iraqi Ministry of Health to treat COVID-19 patients.

[6] The hospital served one of the poorer neighbourhoods of Baghdad, and a spokesperson for the health ministry stated that it was originally built in the 1950s and was renovated the previous year to treat coronavirus patients.

[7] The European Commission released a report earlier in 2021 warning of the increased risk of hospital fires due to the use of supplemental oxygen in wards treating COVID-19 patients.

[5][8] On the night of 24 April 2021, an accident occurred in the hospital's intensive care unit (ICU) that caused an oxygen tank to explode.

[4] Although several patients were relocated to other hospitals, many families decided to wait outside Ibn al-Khatib after the fire was extinguished, in an attempt to search for their loved ones.

[12] On 25 April, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi held an emergency meeting where he ascribed the fire to negligence, and ordered authorities to report the results of an investigation "within 24 hours".

[1][4] Al Jazeera reported that the announcement did not stop criticism from those on social media, as Iraqis repeatedly hear of the government declaring investigations but rarely see anyone being held accountable.