Updated | Victims of Iraq's football match suicide bomber buried

Iraq has buried the victims of a suicide attack in a football match that killed 32 people

Iraq has buried the victims killed by a suicide bomber who struck at a football stadium south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 32 people and injuring 95 others.

The blast in Iskandariya happened in the early evening on Friday at the end of an amateur football game, Falah al-Khafaji, the head of security for Babel province, said. 

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - which controls large areas of the country's north and west - later claimed responsibility for the attack.

Media report that many of the dead were young boys who were in a torphy ceremony hit by the bomber, himself said to be a teenager.

Mobile phone footage widely shared by Iraqis on social media showed players in football kits gathering to collect trophies and footballs as at least one child stood nearby.

Several photographs posted to social media showed mangled goal posts smeared with blood. One image showed a close-up of a football, also covered with blood.

"The suicide bomber cut through the crowd to approach the centre of the gathering and blew himself up as the mayor was presenting awards to the players," Ali Nashmi, an 18-year-old eyewitness, told the AFP news agency. 

The mayor, Ahmed Shaker, was among the dead.

"I was maybe 50 metres from the spot. The blast was extremely loud," Haidar Kadhem, a 20-year-old who survived the explosion, said.

"Most of the crowd were young people, I could see them strewn across the field, some dead, others wounded asking for help. It was just chaos."

An apparent escalation of large bombings in areas outside ISIL's control suggests that Iraqi government forces may be stretched thin after recent gains against the group in the western and northern provinces.

At least 60 people were killed earlier this month in an attack claimed by the group 80km further south, in Hilla, when an explosives-laden fuel tanker slammed into a government checkpoint.