More than 1,000 killed in stampede

At least a thousand people were killed on Wednesday, when Shi’ite Muslim pilgrims stampeded on a bridge spanning the Tigris River in northern Baghdad after rumors that a suicide bomber was present, officials said. “The supposed rumor that a suicide bomber was on the bridge panicked thousands of people and they rushed across the bridge to get out of the area. Many people on the bridge fell over its sides and drowned in the Tigris, others were crushed and among them hundreds of women and children,” said George Sada, an adviser to the Iraqi National Assembly adviser. The Iraqi Army and police started shooting in the air which added to people desperation, horror and panic, witnesses said. The victims were among nearly 3 million pilgrims who were in the Kadhimiya district for an annual ceremony commemorating the death of Moussa al-Khadhim, a revered Shi’ite imam. Ministry of Interior officials announced last in the night that more than 1,130 people had died and more than 940 injured but the number is expected to still rise due to the severity of the injuries and the number of bodies which disappeared in the river. Hospitals in the area were treating their patients on the floor and in corridors. Corpses could be seen everywhere and families could be heard screaming and crying as they identified the dead. “I found my wife holding my son in the hospital and they were both dead. I wish that I died too because I don’t have anyone anymore,” Ali Hassan said as he prepared to take his family to the local cemetery. “I could see her tears dried in her eyes amidst the blood of my son. Those responsible should pay.” The refrigerators of the capital’s largest hospitals were totally full, resulting in many of the corpses being temporarily buried in the gardens until the appearance of their families. “It was the single deadliest incident since the US invasion of the country in March 2003 and the worst incident in the religious history of the country,” said Sabah Kadham, deputy minister of interior. The vast majority of those killed were women, children and the elderly who couldn’t move in the crowded situation and died either by being crushed or suffocated by the masses of people. “This is the worst scene in our hospital’s history – even during the war we did not have such a mess. The injured people are in a very critical condition and few children survived the episode,” said Dr Hussein Amry, a doctor at Kadhimiya hospital. Until nightfall on Wednesday, bodies could still be seen being taken to the hospitals by local residents and Iraqi police. The bodies were being found in the river where and intensive search was on survivors or and bodies. On Thursday, the site of the tragedy was still covered in blood, with items of clothing and children's toys strewn. Iraq's Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has declared three days of mourning in the country. "This is a great tragedy which will leave a scar on our souls. We pray to God that he will save the souls of our martyrs and help heal the wounded people," the prime minister said in a television statement after the incident. The Iraqi Red Crescent Society declared it an emergency and appealed to international organisations to donate first aid material, which is in short supply in public hospitals in the capital. “We urgently need first aid kits, blankets, pain killers, oxygen, masks for respiration and bodybags for the dead people because the IRCS and the local hospitals have run out of these supplies,” urged Ferdous al-Abadi, spokeswoman for the IRCS. Since the accident, the IRCS has opened two emergency centres in the area and helped to carry the injured people and dead bodies to the capital hospitals. Rana Sidani, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq, told IRIN in Amman that the international aid body will have by Friday delivered one and a half tonnes of medical and surgical supplies to Baghdad’s Rasafah district as immediate relief to help victims of the tragedy. The ICRC has drawn around 70,000 litres of portable water from its Baghdad warehouses that will be distributed to the five hospitals that are treating the casualties. Sidani said hospital authorities in the Rasafah area had also requested 500 stretchers and 450 body bags. The ICRC will be providing 5,000 bed sheets to replace those that were used as body bags. In addition, the Minister of Health Abdul Mutalib Mohammad said that there are dozens of cases of poisoning during the festivities, thew cause of which is still unknown. Pilgrims were told not to drink or eat anything from the area due to threats from insurgents that they were going to poison the food during the event. The accident prompted expressions of sadness and condolences from international organisations. In a statement issued at UN Headquarters in New York by his spokesman, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he had learned “with great sadness of the human tragedy,” and he expressed his deepest condolences to the Iraqi Government and to the families of the bereaved. The top United Nations envoy in Iraq, meanwhile, pledged on Wednesday, the world body’s full help following the “catastrophic loss of hundreds of lives.”