Abandoned and terrified, refugees are targets of the death squad

Ned Parker in Baghdad

Palestinians who fled to Iraq after the wars with Israel in 1948 and 1967 are victimised by Shia militias because they were favoured under the regime of Saddam Hussein

The bodies were mangled from six mortars that pounded the Palestinian compound in central Baghdad.

There was Khaled Mahmoud Al-Fahmawi, 40, who was selling beans when shards tore through his legs and chest; 13-year-old Aisha Ahmed Ishaq, who looked from her balcony for her father; and 19-year-old Muhammad Yusuf Abu Kad, whose intestines spilt from his stomach as he screamed: “I’m dying, I’m dying.”

The assault on the Baladiyat housing compound on December 13 lasted for 45 minutes. The bombardment marked the latest shot in a deliberate campaign to drive out the last of the thousands of Palestinians branded by their association with Saddam Hussein.

Shia militias, most prominently al- Mahdi Army, are targeting Palestinian refugees in Iraq and the Iraqi Government has failed to stop them, a UN official told The Times on condition of anonymity.

The others who died on December 13 were 14-year-old Nour Muhammad Manaa, who had been lounging in her garden when the shrapnel lodged in her throat; Zuhair Massoud Shaaban, 50, who had been playing a game of pool; and 19-year-old Yusef Ahmed Saied, who was sitting by his generator.

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