IRAQ: Relatives of victims of latest attack on wedding in Sadr City receive bodies from hospital morgue

Shi'ite families in Baghdad started taking the bodies of their relatives from hospital on Wednesday (November 1, 2006) after the bloody attack that targeted a wedding procession in a Sadr City neighbourhood. People gathered in front of the Ali Bin Abi Talib hospital to take their relatives for burial in the holy city of Najaf, 80 miles south of Baghdad, one of the Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites. Doctor Qassim Balass, from the Ali Bin Abi Talib Hospital, said: "The number of wounded was 25, most of them were suffering from burning and severe burning. The number of deaths is more than 60 per cent of casualties. Most of the wounded were women and children. The number of dead was 17 martyrs." On Tuesday (October 31), a car bomb ripped through a wedding procession in Ur, outside Sadr City, killing at least 15 people, including four children, the Interior Ministry and police sources said. Another 19 people were wounded when the blast struck a convoy of vehicles celebrating a wedding in the religiously mixed district. The target of the attack, which one Interior Ministry source said was carried out by a suicide car bomber, was not clear. Sunni Arab Islamist militant groups including al Qaeda use car bombs against civilians in Shi'ite and mixed areas in Iraq under a campaign U.S. and Iraqi officials say is meant to spark a sectarian civil war.

ITN Source | November 1, 2006

Tags:. .number. .women. .sources. .children. .attack