Baghdad (AINA) -- At approximately 3 A.M. today a major fire was started in the Assyrian district of Al-Dora, south of Baghdad. Al-Sharqiya news reported that this fire damaged more than 500 shops in the Assyrian shopping district. Fire trucks did not arrive for hours and the shop owners, observing a curfew that mandated all to stay in their homes or else be shot, could only watch from their homes as their shops burned in flames.

Translated from Arabic by AINA.