BAGHDAD, 14 August 2004 — Abdullah Hassani is one of the few Iraqis whose business is booming. Victims of gangs, thieves and suicide bombers are filling his cemetery faster than ever.

“We used to get a couple of heart attack victims or the elderly twice a week,” said Hassani, the graveyard’s caretaker.

“Now we bury up to 10 people a day. Some are murdered by thieves or gangs. Some are guerrillas fighting the Americans. Some are tortured and then shot in vendettas and lawlessness.”

Hassani’s tattered record book is a stark barometer of the violence that has racked Iraq since a US-led invasion toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein last year.

“This cemetery is the story of Iraq. I have never seen anything this bad,” said Hassani, 38.

During Saddam’s rule, crime was kept in check by a ruthless police state and bombings were rare. His political opponents were murdered but never made it to such cemeteries.

In Iraq’s current security vacuum, everyone from small-time thieves with guns to militants with explosives strapped to their waist can strike at any time.

A burly man with a white flowing robe and skull cap, Hassani has taken great pride in reading the Qur’an over the dead since he began work at the Sheikh Maarouf Cemetery at age seven.

Now as he walks past rows of tombstones, Hassani sounds like a tour guide of tragedy in a land that was meant to be a shining example of prosperity after the US toppled a dictator.

“This man was selling fish in the market when he was killed by the Americans in clashes. This one, Ahmed Al-Obeidi, was gunned down along with three other policemen in a car. This 75-year-old man was shot dead,” he said.

Pausing in front a family plot with a picture of 6-year-old Amaar Yassir, he shakes his head in disbelief.

“This innocent little boy was in his family’s apartment when gunmen stormed in and shooting erupted. I think it was a rivalry between gangs and his father was involved.”

The latest security nightmare in Iraq — clashes between militiamen of Moqtada Sadr and US and Iraqi forces — has made the simple act of burial an ordeal.

Muhammad Kusay wanted to bury his 3-month-old son in Najaf, a city sacred to millions of Shiites across the world. But roads leading there from Baghdad have been too risky since the fighting erupted. So he had to temporarily bury him in Hassani’s graveyard until the battles stop.

“I cannot even bury my own son. I am alive but I feel dead,” said Kusay.

Chaos plaguing Iraq means some families cannot even find comfort in sacred Muslim rituals such as quick burial. “There was an Egyptian security guard who was killed and it took over a month to move him to the cemetery. His body was so deteriorated I could not work with it,” said Hassani.

“My job is to help move the dead to the afterlife. How can I work in these conditions?”