Fourteen people were killed and 18 others injured on Friday night in a fire that broke out at a residential building in the town of Soran in Erbil province in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

A statement by the Soran health department said "the fire first broke out on the third and fourth floors, which were inhabited by university students and teachers, and then spread to the entire five-story building."

The statement pointed out that preliminary investigation indicated that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit. Civil defense teams and firefighters have extinguished the fire.