January 09, 2007	Tuesday	Zilhaj 18, 1427

DUBAI, Jan 8: Seven children are reported to have died worldwide after seeing video footage of the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, many in ‘play’ hangings that ended in tragedy.

The latest victim was a boy of 12, who hanged himself in Arabia on Sunday, the daily Al Hayat reported on Tuesday.

He stood on a chair and wrapped wire round his neck before attaching it to the door of the family home at Hafr Al Batin, the paper said, adding that he had seen the execution on television.In Yemen, police said two 13-year-old boys met the same fate as the former Iraqi president.

Saddam Hussein -- a widely used patronymic – Al Jaki wrapped a cord around his neck last Wednesday and hanged himself from a tree at his home in Sanaa.

Three days later, Mohammed Al Razami was playing with friends in Syani village when he attached a rope hanging from a tree around his neck. The youth struggled to save himself but could not.

Mubashar Ali, nine, hanged himself while re-enacting the hanging with the help of his elder sister, 10. He tied a rope to a ceiling fan and then to his neck at his home in Rahim Yar Khan on Dec 31.

His father said the children had been watching the video on television and tried to imitate the hanging when other family members thought they were just playing in another room.

A 15-year-old girl from eastern India also hanged herself from a ceiling fan after watching the execution, her father said. “She said they had hanged a patriot. We didn’t take her seriously when she told us that she wanted to feel the pain Saddam did during the execution,” the girl’s father told AFP from Kharda town.

He said his daughter, Moon Moon, had become extremely depressed after watching TV pictures of Saddam’s death.

“She kept watching the scene over and again and didn't take food on Saturday and Sunday to protest the hanging,” he said.

Moon Moon died on Jan 4.

In the United States, a 10-year-old accidentally killed himself after imitating the video clip he had seen on television, the Houston Chronicle reported last week.

The boy tied a slipknot around his neck while on a bunk bed on New Year's Eve, it said. His mother told police her son had watched a report on Saddam’s death on the Spanish-language Telemundo news broadcast before the accident.—AFP