60 kids feared buried under Baghdad bomb site

A senior Iraqi official says 60 young children may still be buried under the rubble in Baghdad's most devastating bombing that has left the country mourning the death of 155 people.

"Three days after the deadly blasts, there is no information about 60 children who were in a nursery affiliated with the Ministry of Justice," said the governor of Baghdad, Abdel-Raziq, on Tuesday.

Raziq fears that the children may still be buried under the rubble, DPA reports.

Baghdad witnessed its deadliest bomb attack in two years, after a two-ton van and a minibus exploded simultaneously outside the Justice Ministry and city government offices on Sunday.

While the official statements put the overall death toll at 99, an official in the Ministry of Interior said, on the condition of anonymity, that the number of dead had reached 155. At least 600 others were also wounded in the attack.

However, there were conflicting reports about the death of the children.

According to Hussein Issa, a police official at the Ministry of Justice, only 30 children had been killed; but other officials said that the figure was minimal.

The military, meanwhile, rejected the governor's remarks that 60 children might still be buried.

In a written statement, the military said on Tuesday that "There is no truth in reports that there are bodies under the rubble of the Ministry of Justice in Baghdad."

"All the martyrs and injured have been taken to hospitals," read the statement.

The statement came soon after an al-Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the blasts, describing it "the second phase in the fight against infidels."

The same group claimed responsibility for a coordinated string of attacks that killed more than 100 people and wounded 1,200 others on August 19 in central Baghdad.

Iraqi officials also confirmed that the August and October attacks were carried out in a similar fashion.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=109764§ionid=351020201.