35 children die in suicide attacks Sep 30 2004<br /><br /> <br />A group of Iraqi children had just run across to US troops for sweets at a neighbourhood celebration in Baghdad when the first of three bombs exploded, killing at least 35 youngsters.<br /><br />In one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since major conflict was declared over, almost 50 people were killed and more than 150 injured in a series of bomb attacks across the country.<br /><br />Three bombs - at least two of them suicide attacks - in Baghdad's al-Amel neighbourhood caused the largest death toll of children in any insurgent attack since the conflict in Iraq began 17 months ago.<br /><br />The children, who were still on school holiday, said they had been drawn to the scene by American soldiers handing out sweets.<br /><br />The blasts -- at least two of which were car bombs -- went off in swift succession, killing 42 people and wounding 141 others, including 10 US soldiers.<br /><br />The bombs targeted a ceremony in which residents were celebrating the opening of a new sewage system, and a US military convoy was passing by at the same time, said Interior Ministry spokesman Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman.<br /><br />Of the 131 Iraqis wounded in the blasts, 72 were children under the age of 14, said Dr Mohammed Salaheddin of Yarmouk Hospital.<br /><br />Grief-stricken parents wailed over the bodies of their children at the hospital morgue. One woman tore at her hair before pulling back the sheet covering her dead brother and kissing him.<br /><br />One man carried his younger brother -- both legs bandaged -- to the hospital, where some children were put two to a bed because of the many wounded. Outside, women sat on the ground and wept as they awaited news about their children.<br /><br />The hospital received 42 bodies -- including those of 35 children -- and 131 wounded, said Iyhsan Nasser, head of the facility's statistics department.
