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3000 bodies mass grave Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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3,000 bodies pulled from mass grave
MSNBC News Services
MAHAWEEL, Iraq, May 14 — Villagers pulled body after body from a mass grave in central Iraq on Wednesday, exhuming the remains of up to 3,000 people they suspect were killed during the 1991 Shiite revolt against Saddam Hussein's regime. Uncounted bodies remained unearthed at the site and a local doctor suggested the final toll may reach 15,000.
RAFED HUSSEINI, the local doctor trying to organize the retrieval, estimated between 10,000 to 15,000 Iraqis had been reported missing in a large swath of the region south of Baghdad; but, with the gruesome search still under way, it was not clear if all those unaccounted for were at Mahawil.
"The most important matter for Iraqi people now is searching for missing relatives," Husseini said.
By every indication, the mass grave in a village outside Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, is the largest found in Iraq since U.S. forces overthrew Saddam and his Baath Party government last month.
Hundreds of people from nearby towns and villages watched from behind a barbed-wire barrier as sets of remains were pulled from the field and set aside wrapped in plastic bags, sheets and blankets. Some of the bodies' skulls still had tufts of long hair, and officials said they probably were women.
People searched for faded identity cards among the skeletons to determine whether it was a brother, father or other relative who disappeared when Saddam's government cracked down on a Shiite uprising in 1991.
Araya Hussein carried the remains of her husband in a bag away from the site.
"He went missing in 1991 when we had 10 children," said the weeping woman. "I thought he was a prisoner and would one day come home. I never imagined I would be carrying his bones home."
Many of the onlookers also were weeping, and some chanted: "There is no God but God, and the Baath (Party) is the enemy of God." Several women were holding pictures of their missing men.
WITNESSES TO EVIL
Husseini said local farmers who had witnessed some of the killings by Saddam's forces had alerted them of the mass graves. "They saw the crimes taking place but did not dare talk about them at the time," Husseini said.
Villagers from Mahaweel began the dig by bringing in a bulldozer to open up the site.
"We are organizing it and we are digging," said Abuzaid Dinar, the village headman. He said his dead father and brother were buried somewhere in the area, where several separate mass graves were spread out over about a half-mile-square area.
The excavation Wednesday came two days after Iraqis pulled bodies from a newly discovered mass grave near the southern city of Basra. That site was believed to contain remains of up to 150 Shiite Muslims killed by Saddam's regime after a rebellion in 1999.
Human rights groups believe Iraq is dotted with mass graves, many filled with victims of Saddam's brutal excesses. Villagers said that appeared to be the case with the latest site.
"About 20 percent of them were buried alive, because they had no bullet wounds, but their hands were tied and they were blindfolded," said Amer Shumri, an official from the governor's office in Hillah.
Shiites rose up against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War but were crushed by the Iraqi leader and his police and military apparatus. Thousands of Shiites were killed.
Many Shiites had expected more U.S. help in their revolt. Some have expressed bitterness, saying the United States under former President Bush had not intervened to save them from Saddam's wrath.
Sukna al-Jbouri, who stood beside the barbed wire, said she had come to find her son Hilal, who was 19 when he was arrested in 1991.
"I was walking with my son in the street and the army came and picked him up," she said. "I tried to stop them but they took him, I don't know why."
SECURING THE SITE
U.S. Marines, who arrived earlier Wednesday to secure the site, planned to bring water and camouflage netting to protect onlookers from the blistering sun.
"We are to help facilitate the reunion of victims and families," said Capt. David Romley from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, who added that his unit had only heard about the site two days earlier. "They want to excavate the site themselves."
"We can take this evidence and present it to a future Iraqi judiciary," he said.
But Peter Bouckaert, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, criticized the U.S.-led administration in Iraq for not sending any forensic experts to Hillah and for allowing local people to excavate the graves.
"The way they're doing it is, they are destroying evidence," Bouckaert said at the scene Wednesday. "It's an absolutely shameful failure on the part of the U.S. government."
He said at least 200,000 people had disappeared in Iraq during the past decade, and that human rights groups knew the locations of many other mass grave sites throughout the country.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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