250 Poisoned in Iraq after Eating Falafel 

More than 250 hundred people were poisoned after eating falafel at a restaurant in southern Iraq, media outlets reported on Tuesday.

Iraqi citizens in the southern province of Maysan ate falafel in a popular restaurant and suffered stomach aches. The case sparked controversy amid a wave of anger pervading the city of Al-ʿAmārah, the center of the province, especially by the families of the victims.

"The hospitals received 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," the director of the Maysan Health Department said

Moreover, an Iraqi official noted that the information available by the injured indicates that all of them ate from a restaurant in the city of Al-ʿAmārah.

The Maysan Police Command and the National Security Directorate in the governorate helped in investigating the case. Accordingly, the restaurant was closed while taking samples of utensils and samples of food.