"A woman with us gave birth in a toilet. We cut the umbilical cord using a broken bottle. The baby was wrapped in rough sackcloth," the female witness told the court, speaking from behind a curtain to protect her identity.

The former strongman and six alleged henchmen were brought back to the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad to hear more Kurdish witnesses describe the brutal 1988 Anfal campaign which government forces carried out in northern Iraq.

Prosecutors say 182,000 Kurds were killed in death camps, bombings and poison gas attacks. Saddam and his co-defendants insist the operation was a legitimate military campaign against separatist guerrillas.

Saddam and one other defendant, his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former military commander who became notorious as "Chemical Ali", are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The remaining defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and all seven accused face the death penalty if convicted.

The defendants' own lawyers are boycotting the trial in protest at alleged interference by the Iraqi government and Judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah has assigned seven court-appointed lawyers to conduct the defence.

On Monday, four witnesses described how they lost dozens of relatives to mass graves after being rounded up and driven to Nigrat Salman prison camp in southern Iraq, near the city of Samawa.

On Tuesday, another Kurd spoke up.

"They told us 'You are families of saboteurs and agents of Iran'. We stayed at the camp for four days and then were moved by buses to Al-Dibis," she said, referring to another camp north of Baghdad near the city of Kirkuk.

"We saw the same thing there. It was as if it was Doomsday. At this camp I adopted two children in addition to my own two. They were left by their parents," she said, speaking confidently from behind her screen.

"One day men wearing protective uniforms and masks came to us. They sprayed us with something and after that we got lice in our hair and diseases like whooping cough. A number of children died," she said.

"I spent six and a half months at this prison until being set free," she continued. "When I returned to my village two years later, I found that our homes were burnt and that Arab people were ploughing our land."

When the defence cross-examined the witness about allegations of rape and abortions in the camps, the judge cut off the microphone to protect the privacy of her testimony.

Many of the inmates did not survive Saddam's gulag. During Monday's testimony prosecutors showed the court the identity cards of many Kurds that had been found in the mass graves which still dot post-war Iraq.

While the Anfal case continues, another panel of judges is preparing to give its verdict in a previous trial against Saddam and another group of former aides alleged to have ordered the killing of 148 Shiite civilians.

The court is due to convene on October 16 to set a date for the verdict in the case -- dubbed the Dujail trial after the small town north of Baghdad where the victims were seized -- and Saddam could be sentenced to death.

If he is condemned to death and he loses an automatic appeal, judges will have to decide whether to press ahead with the Anfal trial and other cases relating to alleged crimes during his 24 years in office, or whether to execute him right away.