Mass
Graves Dug To Deal With
Death Toll
By Ahmed Ali
18 July, 2007
Inter Press Service
BAQUBA, Jul 17 (IPS) - The largest morgue in Diyala
province is overflowing daily. Officials told IPS they have had to dig
mass graves to dispose of bodies.
More and more bodies of victims
of the ongoing violence are being found every day in Baquba, capital
city of the province, 50km northeast of Baghdad.
"The morgue receives
an average of four or five bodies everyday," Nima Jima'a, a morgue
official, told IPS. "Many more are dropped in rivers and farms
-- or it is sometimes the case they are buried by their killers for
other reasons. The number we record here is only a fraction of those
killed."
Ambulances, now able to move
again after weeks of restrictions, have been removing bodies of victims
from the current fighting. But they have also found skulls and bones,
evidence of other killings long ago.
Dealing with these remains
is becoming difficult. Like the rest of the city, the morgue suffers
from continuing lack of electricity. Over the last two weeks, two of
its refrigerators have been shut down. The smell of decomposing bodies
hits visitors 100 metres away.
Morgue officials told IPS
that a local U.S. military commander recently ordered them to bury all
bodies within three days.
"We got 30 bodies out
of the refrigerator on Sunday, put a number on each, and put them in
plastic bags provided by U.S. troops," morgue official Kareem al-Rubaee
told IPS. "We asked families to have a look at the bodies. Then,
they were buried collectively."
There is expected to be a
need now to bury bodies collectively every 15-20 days in order keep
the capacity of the refrigerator intact, al-Rubaee said.
Families are often unable
to identify and collect the bodies, morgue officials say. It is still
extremely dangerous to travel around the city. Also, most bodies are
never brought to the morgue at all to be identified or counted.
Many victims of U.S. air
strikes have been buried under the rubble of their homes for days, sometimes
weeks, residents say. The military operation has been launched to target
al-Qaeda, amid local reports that the operation began after the al-Qaeda
suspects had fled town.
People in the town feel targeted
by killings from all sides. Foreign terror groups, like those who claim
to be following the model of al-Qaeda, have kidnapped many people who
are never heard from again.
Groups believed to be al-Qaeda
have been known to kill and then drop the body in selected places that
they call "the execution zone." This is intended to show people
the power of al-Qaeda.
Police vehicles and ambulances
have been moving bodies mainly from such spots to the morgue.
Baquba, never anticipating
such a death toll, has only a small morgue, and limited means to carry
out necessary procedures.
"When a number of bodies
are brought to the morgue, we take at least two photos from different
angles," Mohammed Abid, another official at the morgue told IPS.
"Generally, the bodies are brought without identity cards. This
is a problem for the families for whom the photographs are not enough
-- faces are often deformed due to torture or shooting."
The refrigerators at the
morgue are packed beyond capacity, and workers narrate grisly accounts
of attempts to access the bodies for identification.
"My brother's photo
is in the computer, but we couldn't get the body because it was taken
by another family," 52-year-old primary schoolteacher Naser Sattar
told IPS. "They thought him their son because the body was deformed."
The schoolteacher added,
"I went to that family and got my brother's body and then buried
it."
(Ahmed, our correspondent
in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail,
our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in
the region)
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