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Girl, 12, Was Sole Survivor When Her Family Was Killed in Haditha; Congressman Says 'Mass Murder' Was Covered Up

By JONATHAN KARL

May 28, 2006 — After a small group of Marines stormed the Younis family home in Haditha last November, everybody inside was killed — except one person.

ABC News has obtained an interview with the sole survivor, 12-year-old Safa Younis. The interview was done by a local Iraqi journalism student about one week after the killings on Nov. 19, 2005.

The U.S. military continues to investigate what happened in Haditha, where a total of 24 civilians died. But one congressman, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said today that he's convinced the incident was mass murder and that it was covered up.

"There has to have been a cover-up," Murtha told ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "There's no question about it."

'I Pretended to Be Dead'

On the new tape shot by an Iraqi journalism student and given to ABC News by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group in Iraq, Younis, soft-spoken, with rounded cheeks and a headscarf, begins by calmly telling the interviewer, "My name is Safa Younis. I'm 12 years old."

The interviewer asks, "What did the American soldiers do when they broke into the house?"

"They knocked at the door," Younis says. "My father went to open it, they shot him dead from behind the door, and then they shot him again after they opened the door."

She describes hearing the Marines go through the rest of the house, shooting and setting off a grenade before getting to the bedroom where she was with her mother and siblings.

"Then comes one American soldier and shot [at] us all," she says. "I pretended to be dead … and he did not know about me."

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[ 30 May 2006: Message edited by: majorvictory64 ]