|
75 killed in Shi'ite bastion
29/03/2008 13:16 - (SA)
Baghdad - Clashes between Shi'ite gunmen and Iraqi and United States troops in Baghdad's Sadr City have killed at least 75 people and wounded nearly 500 for the past four days, an Iraqi health official says.
"Seventy-five people have been killed and 498 wounded in clashes in Sadr City in the last four days," Qassim Mohammed, a spokesperson for Baghdad health directorate, told reporters in the sprawling Shiite bastion on Saturday.
Mohammed also accused the US forces of "creating obstacles" in transporting victims of the violence outside Sadr City.
"They are preventing even international aid workers to help the wounded," he said during a visit to Sadr City's Imam Ali hospital.
Sadr City, bastion of the feared Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, had been engulfed in fierce clashes between security forces and the militiamen for several days.
Clashes erupted in the neighbourhood after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Shi'ite fighters in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday.
- AFP
|
News
