Fire guts Iraq shopping center, killing at least 61 people, officials say

Baghdad — A fire at a newly opened mall in eastern Iraq's Wasit province killed more than 60 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The nation's Interior Ministry said in a statement that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation, in the blaze that broke out late Wednesday in the city of al-Kut. 

Among the dead were 14 charred bodies that remain unidentified, the ministry said.

French news agency AFP cited the ministry as saying most of the dead were found in bathrooms.