IRAQ: SUSPECTED MASS GRAVE UNCOVERED NEAR BAGHDAD FILLED WITH BODIES SAID TO BE VICTIMS OF EXCUTION BY IRAQI GOVERNMENT

Record ID: 648257

  • Title: IRAQ: SUSPECTED MASS GRAVE UNCOVERED NEAR BAGHDAD FILLED WITH BODIES SAID TO BE VICTIMS OF EXCUTION BY IRAQI GOVERNMENT
  • Date: 25th April 2003
  • Summary: (W7) NEAR BAGHDAD (APRIL 25, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. EARTH-FILLED TRENCHES AT FORMER MILITARY COMPOUND 2. VARIOUS OF AREA WITH OLDER TRENCHES 3. SURGICAL MASK IN THE MUD 4. ABANDONED PLANE AT MILITARY COMPOUND 5. MEN ARRIVE AT THE SITE 6. TRENCHES 7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) VILLAGER SAYING "We were driving on this road and it smelled really bad so we stopped. When we started looking we found these bodies. Some of them sere buried but not completely. Dogs were eating off the stomach of some of the bodies." 8. TRENCH 9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) VILLAGER SAYING "We found two trenches, one was full of bodies and the second was empty. I think they were in a hurry and put all the bodies in this trench" 10. BUSH AT SITE 11. MORE BUSHES AND OPEN FIELD 12. BULLDOZER DIGGING AT THE SITE 13. VARIOUS OF BULLDOZER MOVING EARTH 14. MEN AT THE SITE 15. DECOMPOSED BODY CAUGHT BY BULLDOZER 16. SKULL IN THE GROUND 17. MAN LOOKING AT THE STIE 18. MORE OF SKULL AND CLOTHES AROUND IT 19. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) VILLAGER SAYING "The bodies we found some had civilian clothes others had uniforms and some we could not really see because they were killed with something we could not identify." 20. MORE OF BULLDOZER MOVING EARTH Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEAR BAGHDAD, IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVA4VWMCJWKU50HAXBQKL885FKRF
  • Story Text: A suspected mass grave has been uncovered near Baghdad
    filled with the bodies of people said to have been executed by
    the previous Iraqi government.



    A wasteland on the outskirts of Baghdad hides yet
    another dark secret.

    As rumours swirl across Iraq of prisoners still alive in
    secret underground jail complexes, and every day brings a new
    tale of mass graves, actually finding evidence of mass
    executions requires huge amounts of painstaking research.

    But for the residents of a town close to an Iraqi
    Intelligence Service base, there was no need for research when
    they finally gathered the courage to enter what for years had
    been a source of terror.

    The stench or rotting bodies led them from the outskirts
    of the deserted base, renowned for years as the base of Iraqi
    hit squads, right to a pile of dead bodies.

    The villagers would prefer not to be named but they are
    happy to say what they saw: two long slit trenches, one empty,
    the other full of bodies, hastily buried.

    One described the sight, and said the bodies needed to be
    buried properly as dogs were tearing them apart.

    His friend brought a bulldozer and they covered the bodies
    in sand.

    Today they used the same bulldozer to uncover the
    evidence.

    They quickly unearth a badly decomposed body. While the
    stench of decayed flesh still hands in the air, this body has
    obviously been buried a while.

    It was dressed in a military uniform.

    The driver of the bulldozer describes the sight that met
    him the day the villagers entered the base.

    The villagers say they believe two busloads of people were
    killed and their bodies dumped at this vast paramilitary
    training ground in late March. The villagers said they found
    the bodies on April 4.

    There are several visible earth-filled trenches that
    stretch out across the site. Asked how many people had been
    buried there the villager said there there could be as many as
    50, each buried with one metre between them.

    "We found two trenches, one was full of bodies and the
    second was empty. I think they were in a hurry and put all the
    bodies in this trench," one villager said.

    He said when he saw some of the bodies it appeared as if
    they might have suffered a hideous death.

    "The bodies we found some had civilian clothes others had
    uniforms and some we could not really see because they were
    killed with something we could not identify," he said.

    He said villagers re-buried between 70 to 80 bodies.

    Western human rights groups say thousands of political
    prisoners were executed by Saddam though no one knows even an
    approximate figure.

    In December, Britain, seeking to turn public opinion in
    favour of war, accused Saddam of gross human rights
    violations, from acid baths and eye-gouging to rape and mass
    execution.


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