BAGHDAD, April 17: Seventeen bullet-riddled bodies of men killed in apparent sectarian bloodshed surfaced across Baghdad on Monday as Iraq was thrown into political turmoil after leaders cancelled a much-awaited parliament session.

Twelve bodies were found in Baghdad’s Dura neighbourhood, while three corpses were recovered in the capital’s Al Shuala district and two more in the Kadimiyah neighbourhood, an interior ministry official said.

“Of the 12 bodies found in Dura, two were found inside a foreign car, while five next to the car,” the official said.

Eleven other people were killed across Iraq as violence continued unabated amid the power vacuum created by the absence of a national unity government.

Hundreds of bodies have been found in the last two months since sectarian clashes erupted between Shias and Sunnis after the bombing of a shrine in Samarra on Feb 22.—AFP