The director of the Maysan Health Department revealed that: “The department’s hospitals have received since Sunday a large number of cases suffering from severe diarrhea, vomiting, high temperature and intestinal colic, and they were diagnosed according to their symptoms as cases of food poisoning.”
He added: “A death was recorded for one of the poisoned youth, as the Forensic Medicine Department continues to conduct the forensic medical position of the case in order to find out the cause of death.”
The Iraqi official indicated that: “The information available by the injured indicates that all of them ate from one of the restaurants in the city of Al-Amarah, where, in coordination with the Maysan Police Command and the National Security Directorate in the governorate, the restaurant was closed while taking samples of utensils and samples of food, and there is a team An integrated public health laboratory is working to determine the cause of the contamination.
The Al-Amarah Investigation Court announced that it had taken measures to arrest a restaurant owner and 6 other defendants, against the background of food poisoning of dozens of citizens in Maysan, and the death of one of them.
This tragedy reopens the file of weak health control mechanisms in Iraq and safety and hygiene standards in restaurants, especially popular ones, which in most of them do not even have licenses to operate, as is the case with this poisoned falafel restaurant, which reveals, according to the comments of the angry Iraqi social media pioneers, the extent The wide scope of neglect, lethargy, and the absence of accountability and oversight, wondering how a restaurant can operate openly during the day in the city center without a license?
Commentators criticized the slow pace of holding the restaurant’s owner and employees accountable, calling for the most severe penalties to be imposed on them, and holding health and government authorities responsible, as they condone the existence of unlicensed restaurants and the lack of the most basic standards of safety and prevention, even those that are licensed.
In this context, the Iraqi citizen Haider said in an interview with Sky News Arabia: “I watched with my own eyes when I sometimes buy falafel sandwiches or shawarma, how the sweat that pours out from the workers preparing them, mixes with the ingredients of those sandwiches, and what is hidden is greater inside the kitchens of these restaurants”.
He added: “The issue is complex, and everyone bears the responsibility from the Ministry of Health and its directorates to the owners of restaurants and kiosks, to us as citizens and customers, and the problem is that people in general resort to such small and popular restaurants despite their lack of cleanliness and the deterioration of their services and the quality of the meals they provide, because their prices are relatively cheap compared to luxury restaurants.” .
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