"There was a misunderstanding on the part of an employee. I apologise because there is no shame in apologising and it is a virtue to admit one's mistake," Al-Mansour Mall spokesman Saad al-Kurdi wrote on Facebook.

He pledged that the mall would provide funding for a year to the Ruhmaa Benahm orphan association which had organised the visit.

The group itself told AFP on Thursday that the offer was for clothes, food and toys, and also that 51 orphans had been invited to the mall's play centre and its restaurant.

Volunteers from Ruhmaa Benahm had hoped to give the orphans a holiday treat by taking them on a visit to the mall, including the restaurant, group spokesman Ibrahim Taha said.

He said the restaurant was "reserved and paid for" but the party was denied entry.

The children, aged between seven and 15, had likely been barred because staff had seen the name of the orphan association on the reservation, Taha said.

"When I showed up with the children, the manager refused to let us in saying they would disturb the playground and the restaurant," he said.

The volunteers filmed themselves at the entrance to the mall -- which is Baghdad's largest and was built in 2013 at a cost of $35 million (30 million euros).

The video was shared nearly 5,000 times on social media.

The mall's management issued a statement on Sunday saying security guards had only asked the group to wait outside until space was freed.

But outraged Twitter and Facebook users pointed to temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) outside.

The hashtag "Boycott Mansour mall" was used 15,000 times and the mall's rating on its Facebook page plunged from five stars to one star in the space of a few hours.

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