Iraq's Child Prisoners; a Sunday Herald Investigation has Discovered That Coalition Forces Are Holding More Than 100 Children in Jails Such As Abu Ghraib. Witnesses Claim That the Detainees - Some As Young As 10 - Are Also Being Subjected to Rape and Torture

Sunday Herald › August 02, 2004

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Summary

It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets," he said in a statement given to investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. "Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door and I saw [the soldier's name is deleted] who was wearing a military uniform." Hilas, who was himself threatened with being sexually assaulted in Abu Graib, then describes in horrific detail how the soldier raped "the little kid".

In another witness statement, passed to the Sunday Herald, former prisoner Thaar Salman Dawod said: "[I saw] two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and [a US soldier] was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners. The prisoners, two of them, were young."

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Extract

Iraq's Child Prisoners; a Sunday Herald Investigation has Discovered That Coalition Forces Are Holding More Than 100 Children in Jails Such As Abu Ghraib. Witnesses Claim That the Detainees - Some As Young As 10 - Are Also Being Subjected to Rape and Torture

It's not certain exactly how many children are being held by coalition forces in Iraq, but a Sunday Herald investigation suggests there are up to 107. Their names are not known, nor is where they are being kept, how long they will be held or what has happened to them during their detention.

Proof of the widespread arrest and detention of children in Iraq by US and UK forces is contained in an internal Unicef report written in June. The report has - surprisingly - not been made public. A key section on child protectio...

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