Hundreds killed in stampede near Baghdad mosque (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

(This is a very tragic story, It started with a Mortar explosion, which turned into a panic)

Hundreds killed in stampede near Baghdad mosque

Wed Aug 31, 2005 03:20 PM ET

By Mariam Karouny and Sebastian Alison

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than 800 Iraqi Shi'ites died in a stampede over a Baghdad bridge provoked by rumours of a suicide bomber on Wednesday, and an official said the death toll was expected to reach 1,000. The swarming crowds had been heading to a religious ceremony at the Kadhimiya mosque in the old district of north Baghdad when someone shouted there was a suicide bomber among them, a police source said.

"Hundreds of people started running and some threw themselves off the bridge into the river," the source said. "Many elderly died immediately ... but dozens drowned, many bodies are still in the river and boats are working on picking them up."

Most victims were women and children who "died by drowning or being trampled," an Interior Ministry official said. "At 10:30 p.m. the confirmed death toll is 852 and it is still rising.,"" said Dr Jaseb Latif Ali, a general manager at the Health Ministry, who said earlier the ministry expected the toll to top 1,000 people.

It was by far the biggest loss of life in such a crowd since more than 1,400 pilgrims died at Mecca during the haj in 1990. In a country inured to mass bloodshed on its streets, there was profound shock and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari declared three days of mourning. Constant coverage on national television included an appeal for relatives to claim a baby held up to the camera. He was found next to his mother's body.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=9525099&src=rss/worldNews>
(more at link above)

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