Seventy-three people were killed devastating back-to-back market bombings carried out by the Islamic State (ISIS) on Sunday, according to Iraqi officials.
Over one hundred people remain in hospital and at least five are still classified as missing after an explosion blew up the crowded Mredi market in the Shiite district of Sadr City, followed by a suicide bombing that tore apart the crowd that had gathered to help victims.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on security forces to “exert further efforts to prevent the terrorists from carrying out their crimes against innocent civilians.”
In a statement released late in the day, al-Abadi said the carnage “will not stop us … but they will increase the determination” of the army, security forces and paramilitary troops to dislodge the militants from areas under their control.
Jan Kubis, the UN envoy to Iraq, said the Sadr City bombings were a “particularly vicious and cowardly terrorist attack” targeting “peaceful civilians who were going about their daily business.
It is clearly aimed at inflaming sectarian strife,” he said Monday.