Ex-wife burns down bridal tent of ex-husband's new bride's wedding; 41 wedding guests' bodies burned beyond recognition

According to the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Qabas daily and Associated Press, in al-Jahra, near Kuwait City, a 23-year-old ex-wife allegedly didn't like the way her ex-husband treated her during their marriage. Because of that mistreatment, she claimed, according to an August 18, 2009 Associated Press article, "Ex-wife said to be held in fatal wedding arson," she allegedly set fire to the bridal tent to climax the wedding as her ex-husband was getting married to a new wife. The tent was set up only for female guests at the wedding celebration in al-Jahra.

The new bride was uninjured. But her mother and sister were killed. And where is the groom? The males and females had separate wedding tents at the Kuwaiti wedding. Kuwaitis celebrate weddings in separate parties for men and women, with children attending the women's event. In tribal regions, wedding parties usually are celebrated in cloth-sewn tents, a custom rooted in the country's desert-climate heritage.

The wedding tent turned into an inferno as the ex-wife poured kerosene soaked in rags on the tent and set it aflame. The flimsy wedding tent burned down in just three minutes, and 41 wedding guests were charred so badly, the inferno left the bodies unrecognizable. Two other guests later died in the hospital bringing the death toll to 43 female wedding guests and 52 wedding guests still in the hospital with injuries and burns.

Other wedding guests crushed one another in a stampede to flee the burning tent. Local Kuwaiti newspapers reported the motive "was personal," and the groom's ex-wife allegedly was the arsonist. The arson occured Saturday night in the "tribal area of al-Jahra," just west of Kuwait City.

The yet to be named woman confessed to using kerosene-soaked rags to set the packed tent on fire, according to Kuwait's al-Qabas newspaper. By Monday, the original death toll of 41 from the blaze climbed to 43 after two severely burned victims died from their injuries yesterday.

The English-language Kuwait Times noted that the arsonist was arrested after witnesses said they had seen a woman setting the tent on fire using kerosene-soaked rags. The tragedy took place just before the advent of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts this week.