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Children die in basra blast { April 21 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/21/1082395906864.htmlhttp://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/21/1082395906864.html
Children die in Basra blast
April 21, 2004
Suicide car bombings at four police stations in and near the southern Iraqi city of Basra have killed 68 people.
Mayor Wael Abdel-Hafeez told reporters most of the dead were civilians, including many children.
He said 99 people were wounded.
Three near simultaneous blasts targeted police stations at rush hour in Basra. At about the same time, a fourth explosion ripped through the police academy in the Basra suburb of Zubeir. An hour later another blast targeted the same police academy.
Forty-five people were killed in the police station blasts and
10 were killed in the police academy explosions, officials and witnesses said.
The injured included two British soldiers at the police academy, Major Hisham al-Halawi, spokesman for British forces in Basra, told Al-Arabiya television.
At one station in the Saudia district of Basra, four vehicles were seen destroyed including two school vans that were passing that station at the time of the attack.
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One was carrying students from a girls' middle school and the other carried kindergarten students.
Some 10 children were among the deal, Iraqi Police Colonel Kadhem al-Muhammedawi said. It was not immediately clear which bus they came from.
Cars outside of the station were charred. The interior of one of the school buses was burned out, the seats shredded.
British forces who rushed to the scene were being hampered by angry protesters, said a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman in London, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
The facade of the Saudia station was also heavily damaged and there was a hole two metres deep and three metres wide in front of the Saudia station.
More than 40 dead and 200 injured from the blast were brought to Basra's Educational Hospital, the city's largest, said Ali Hussein, an emergency physician at the facility.
Dozens of bodies could be seen in the morgue and in the hallways of Basra's Educational Hospital.
Another five dead and 36 injured were evacuated to a second hospital, Basra General Hospital, hospital officials said.
Witnesses said 10 people were killed in the police academy explosions.
"We don't know yet who committed these bombings," al-Halawi said. He said two British soldiers were wounded in the al-Zubair attack.
British military spokesman Squadron Leader Jonathan Arnold said the blasts were believed to have been caused by car bombs.
Al-Muhammedawi said, however that the blast may have been caused by rocket attacks.
- Reuters, AP
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