ceremony was being held
At least 60 people have been killed at a funeral in
the mainly Shia Muslim Sadr City district of the
Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
A tent where mourners were gathered was hit by two
explosions, one of them a suicide car bomb.
A third explosion followed as police, ambulances and
firefighters gathered at the scene, according to one
report.
Officials reported that women and children were
among the dead and that more than 120 people had
been injured.
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing,
which happened early on Saturday evening.
The explosions reportedly set the tents and nearby cars
on fire, with eyewitnesses describing the scene as an
"inferno".
"I saw several charred bodies on the ground and tents
on fire and also burning cars. Wounded people were
screaming in pain,'' says one of the mourners, Sheikh
Sattar al-Fartousi.
Medics in nearby hospitals confirmed the scale of the
casualties.
Also on Saturday, eight people were killed in a separate
bomb attack in a street in the nearby neighbourhood
of Ur.
And at least five police officers were killed in an assault
on a police station in Baiji, north of Baghdad.
Surge in violence
Sectarian violence has surged across Iraq in recent
months, reaching its highest level since 2008.
The violence was triggered in April by an army raid on
a Sunni Muslim anti-government protest camp near
Hawija, also north of Baghdad.
The country has also seen a spill-over of violence from
the conflict in Syria, which has taken on increasingly
sectarian overtones.
In recent weeks, Iraqi security forces have reportedly
arrested hundreds of alleged al-Qaeda members in and
around Baghdad as part of a campaign which the Shia-
led government is calling "Revenge for the martyrs".
But the operations, which have taken place mostly in
Sunni districts, have angered the Sunni community and
failed to halt the violence.
More than 5,000 people have died so far this year in
Iraq, 800 of them in August alone, according to the
United Nations.
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