Iraqi Thugs `Hang Dead Children in the Streets'

April 7, 2003
Euan Hamilton

SADDAM loyalists have tortured and killed dozens of children, hanging their bodies from street lights, it was claimed yesterday.

A French aid worker said three women told her that Baath party officials in Basra carried out the horrific attacks on families thought to be helping Allied forces.

Children as young as four were hung as their parents were forced to watch.

The atrocities came to light during a water drop on the outskirts of Iraq's second largest city and a Baath party stronghold.

Vanessa Lough, 37, who previously worked as a UN interpreter, said: "Three women, one of whom's niece was killed, told me what happened.

"In one street alone they said three children could be seen hanging from the lampposts and around the corner one child lay burnt on the road.

"Through what I can gather they knew of a least 11 deaths but said they were many more elsewhere in the city.

Lough claims one of the women told how Baath party officials have targeted people getting aid and water from British troops.

She added: "Saddam's men told a father his son was being killed because he had been seen laughing with several men from the British army.

"They told him he had `betrayed' Saddam in an act of treason. They made him watch as they set his son alight with petrol."

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