Arrest and abuse of Iraqi children revealed

BERLIN,—More than 100 children being held in prisons in Iraq were arrested and suffered abuse from U.S. and coalition soldiers, according to the Red Cross, reports Der Spiegel Online.

ANSA reports that the online version of the weekly, which in turn cites the program Report, from the SWR network, affirms that the abusive episodes also took place in Abu Ghraib, the Baghdad prison where other cases of torture were reported.

“Between January and May of this year, we registered 107 children in total during 19 visits to six different prisons,” stated Florian Westphal, International Red Cross spokesman, in an interview by SWR in Geneva.

These were prisons under the control of the occupation forces, Westphal emphasized, adding that the number of detained children could be even higher.