BAGHDAD: The toll in a twin suicide bombing in an open-air Baghdad market on Thursday morning topped 20 dead and 40 wounded, an interior ministry official told AFP.

The ministry said the first suicide bomber had rushed into the market and claimed to feel sick, so that people would gather around him. He then detonated his explosives.

As people gathered around the victims, a second attacker detonated his bomb, the ministry's statement said.