AMMAN, July 31: Two daughters of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, accompanied by nine children, on Thursday arrived in Jordan, where they have been given Jordanian protection, a high-ranking official said here.

The daughters were identified as Raghad and Rana, though the official was unable to specify who the children were.

King Abdullah II has agreed to host them “for humanitarian reasons and because of the difficult situation in their country,” the official from the royal palace said, requesting anonymity.

“We do not know how long they will stay in Jordan. The fact is that they benefit from Jordanian protection as long as they are in the country,” he added.

Raghad and Rana were married respectively to Hussein Kamel Hassan and his brother Saddam Kamel Hassan, who both defected to Jordan in 1995 with their wives and total of seven children.

The families returned to Iraq in February 1996, but the two men, their brother and a sister, as well as other family members, were assassinated by Saddam’s regime after being accused of treason.

Raghad and Rana had since been living out of the public eye with their mother, Sajida, in Iraq, apparently under close watch. —AFP