BAGHDAD: Three suicide bombers detonated explosives belts among pilgrims in Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 36 people, while militants shot dead a family of five, officials said.

The deadliest attack hit the Dura area of south Baghdad, where a bomber targeted pilgrims at a tent where they are served food and drinks on their way to the shrine city of Karbala, killing at least 20 people and wounding at least 40.

Among those killed in the blast was Muhanad Mohammed, a journalist who had worked for both foreign and Iraqi media, one of his sons said.

He was the seventh journalist to be killed in the country in less than three months.

Two more bombers targeted pilgrims in areas south of Baghdad – one in Yusifiyah, killing eight people and wounding at least 32, and another in Latifiyah, killing at least eight people and wounding at least 18.

At Yarmuk Hospital in Baghdad, wounded people were rushed in on gurneys for treatment. Those injured included children and an old woman whose face was covered in blood.—AFP