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Saturday 21 September 2013

65 killed in Iraq during funeral

People inspect the site of a double suicide bomb attack, in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr city in Baghdad, Iraq on 21 September 2013

The bomb attacks targeted a tent where a funeral ceremony was being held

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At least 60 people have been killed at a funeral in the mainly Shia Muslim Sadr City district of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
A tent where mourners were gathered was hit by two explosions, one of them a suicide car bomb.
 BBC report that a  third explosion followed as police, ambulances and firefighters gathered at the scene, according to one report.
Officials reported that women and children were among the dead and that more than 120 people had been injured.
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which happened early on Saturday evening.
The explosions reportedly set the tents and nearby cars on fire, with eyewitnesses describing the scene as an "inferno".
"I saw several charred bodies on the ground and tents on fire and also burning cars. Wounded people were screaming in pain,'' says one of the mourners, Sheikh Sattar al-Fartousi.
Medics in nearby hospitals confirmed the scale of the casualties.
Also on Saturday, eight people were killed in a separate bomb attack in a street in the nearby neighbourhood of Ur.
And at least five police officers were killed in an assault on a police station in Baiji, north of Baghdad.