Desperate Iraqis searched on Wednesday for remains of their loved ones at one of the largest mass graves yet found in Iraq, piled with thousands of victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The decomposed bodies, which some said could number as many as 15 000 spread over several neighbouring sites, were believed to be mostly of Shiite Muslims killed in an uprising against Saddam in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war.
Hundreds of distraught men and women scavenged through a recently discovered grave in the town of Mahawil, south of Baghdad, where locals and US troops said around 3 000 people may be buried.
Volunteers had in recent days put some of the remains in bags along with ID cards and personal effects but as Iraqis ripped through the site, rights experts said valuable evidence against the regime was being lost forever.
”There is not a single forensic expert here brought by the United States,” said Peter Bouckaert from Human Rights Watch.
”The failure is on the part of US and coalition forces. The majority of people leave without answers. It’s a setback in the effort to bring criminals to court,” he said.
But local resident Rafid al-Hussain said: ”The evidence is here. Everybody knows Saddam Hussein was a criminal.”
Many Iraqis found their worst fears confirmed at the site, which was heaped with human skulls, pieces of bone and scraps of faded, filthy clothing. One woman wept unconsolably after finding her brother’s ID card.
”We’ve been told that around 2 600 bodies have been exhumed but we’ve also been told that in the area there are maybe 10 000 bodies,” said US Marine Captain David Romley.
”Everybody wants to know what happened here. Everybody wants to identify the bodies,” he said.
The identification process was further complicated because many who found remains of their loved ones quickly carried them off to give them a proper funeral before sundown, in keeping with Muslim tradition.
A representative for the Iraqi National Congress, a US-backed opposition group which is playing a key role in the formation of a new post-Saddam government, said on Tuesday that 15 000 people may be buried at the sites.
The representative, Entifadh Qanbar, said the Baath party, which helped Saddam hold an iron grip over the nation for 24 years, was responsible for the killings and warned against Baathists ever holding positions of power again.
”The Baath party is based on a Nazi-like ideology and must not continue in a new Iraq,” he said.
The US-led coalition has been welcoming mid-level Baath party members back to their posts as it tries to speed up the rebuilding process, but the move has been criticised by many Iraqis.
Qanbar said hundreds of thousands of people had been murdered by Saddam’s regime. The figures will be difficult to verify but for many heartbroken Iraqis here, the search for their family members is proving prolonged.
Mohammed Abdullah said his son had disappeared more than a decade ago when he was on his way to join the army in the southern city of Basra.
”Every time I hear there is a mass grave, I come to look,” Abdullah said. He found nothing on Wednesday morning.
Khisma, who would not give her last name, said that her three sons had gone missing in 1991 and that she had been scouring the site at Mahawil every day for a week.
”I found the ID card of one of them,” she said. ”But I’m still looking for the two others.” – Sapa-AFP