Assignment-Iraq-1-MassGraves

Iraq: Managing Mass Graves

Photos by Stewart Innes

In the aftermath of the fall of the Saddam regime, there was a passionate run to find out what had happened to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who had disappeared. Almost every Iraqi family had lost someone to the dreaded internal security forces in Iraq. Long suspecting their existence but unable to act, Iraqi's were desperate to search the many mass graves to find remains of loved ones. Coalition authorities and international organisations were completely unprepaired and unco-ordinated for the barrage of requests that they excavate the mass graves.

Desperate Iraqi families, impatient at the slow pace of progress, began digging up mass graves themselves searching for remains of loved ones to give them proper burial. Many religious leaders organised digs and displayed remains at mosques to assist families in their search. Once the grave was touched, however, authorities considered it had been tampered with and were not prepaired to manage the site. Pressure from within Iraq and from international organisations finally prompted coalition authorities to manage the mass graves.

Stewart visited many mass graves in southern Iraq, as well as mosques where remains were being displayed. The pictures below are from a mass grave at Hilla, near Babylon, where 3000 bodies had been found and something like 10,000 more might be buried.

This is a documentation of the visit to the site of Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on July 19, 2003.

US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz being briefed on managing the site.

Wolfowitz meets Sayyed Jaber Mohsin Al Hussaini, a farmer who had land confiscated for use as a mass grave.

In this case, a crutch was left protruding from the grave in the hope that relatives of its owner would recognise it and claim the remains buried beneath.

Clothing and other personal effects are removed from the bodies, which are then given an Islamic burial. Personal effects are placed in bags on top of the individual graves to enable relatives to search for loved ones.

Al Husaini showing us the boundaries of his farm which is partially covered by the mass grave. In the background are the white plastic bags in which worldy remains of bodies are placed on top of graves.

Al Husaini told us how after the 1992 uprisings he watched as soldiers and Ba'ath party thugs brought truckloads of prisoners to the field behind him, blindfolded them, lined them up along trenches and shot them then covered the trenches using bulldozers.

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