The victim, Ali Hussein, left his home in Miqdadia district's Dhibab village to ride his bike to a nearby shop to get some essentials, according to Hussein’s family members. On the way, the family believes the boy was stopped by two individuals, who took Hussein to a vacant building where they burned him alive, over undisclosed reasons.
Witnesses said that the boy, engulfed in flames, ran out of the building screaming and asking for help.
"We woke up to the screams of women," neighbor Mohammed Taha told Rudaw. “We saw that the boy had fallen on the ground. I rushed him to the hospital in my car, together with his mother and grandmother... He was no longer burning.”
Hussein succumbed to his wounds on Tuesday, and his family has said they were shocked and have no idea why their son was killed.
"There were no issues or misunderstandings between the [suspected] criminal's family and us," Ali Shahid, Hussein's uncle, told Rudaw on Wednesday. “And we still do not know the motive behind the killing.”
Diyala police have an arrest warrant from the judiciary and are attempting to locate the two suspects, who are believed to have fled and remain at-large.
Violence against children remains a serious problem in the country, despite Iraqi law prohibiting “all forms of violence and abuse in the family” in the Iraqi constitution.
Just two weeks ago, a man killed his entire family, totaling four people, in Iraq’s southern province of Najaf allegedly due to financial difficulties.
In late July, a nine-year-old girl died in Baghdad after her father and stepmother allegedly beat her with a broom, scalded her with hot tea, and left her tied on a rooftop under the scorching sun until she died.
