BABYLON, 4 May 2003 — Residents of Babylon have discovered a mass grave believed to date back to an uprising put down by Iraq’s ousted regime of Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War and had already dug up 35 corpses yesterday.
They uncovered bones and skulls which were collected in small piles at a wasteland on the southern edge of the city, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad.
US Marines at the site said the bones included those of children aged about 10-12.
“My son was arrested in 1991 after the troubles,” 70-year-old Mohi Jabbar Hamza told AFP. “I found out from the hospital that he had been buried along with others to the south of the town.”
Salman Jari added: “In 1991, I saw a bulldozer digging a common grave then a lorry twice dump loads which were covered up with earth by the bulldozer.”
The 33-year-old worker admitted that at the time he had not been close enough to see if the loads were bodies or not. He explained his years long silence by fear of the security services of the former regime, which brutally crushed the uprisings in the north and south and held the country in an iron grip.
In an act of provocation, or perhaps expediency, the torturers of the deposed regime buried their victims a few hundred meters from the mausoleum of Bakr ibn Ali ibn Bakr, the green dome of which towers over the surrounding flat fields.
Cuts were clearly visible on some skulls, prompting a resident to say that Saddam’s henchmen had cut off heads with power saws.
A few said they knew of this site but had never dared to start digging with President Saddam Hussein still in power.
US Marines, who had cordoned off the site ahead of the arrival of forensic scientists, said they had found documents dating back to 1990 and needles scattered over the bodies in a bid to keep dogs and cats from digging there.
“We suspect that this happened during the 1991 uprising and eyewitnesses say they saw people drive up here to dump the dead,” Lt. David Lewis of the 1st Marine regiment, 1/4 Battalion, told Reuters.
“Some of the skulls appear to have been cut open, maybe they were experimenting with the prisoners. Some were executed, you can see bullet holes in their skulls. Some were still strapped to metal structures.”
He said the scientists would help with the further excavation of the site, just a few miles from Babylon, an ancient town south of Baghdad, in the cradle of civilization.
Officials of Saddam’s government brutally suppressed the 1991 uprising, in which tens of thousands of people were believed to have been killed.
Washington has often referred to the brutal tactics of Saddam’s government to add justification for launching a war to oust the president on March 20. Several mass graves have been found since Saddam was toppled on April 9.
“I must continue to dig because I want to find even a small trace of my two brothers, who deserted the army and were then arrested,” said Ahmad Saleh, a resident in his 40s who added that a piece of identification for a driver from Karbala had been found at the site.
In Babylon itself, the discovery was, not surprisingly, the talk of the town and residents contended they knew the torturers.
The names making the rounds were those of Habib Tomaa, the former local Baath Party chief, and his two deputies, Ali Obeid and one Abu Zeineb.
“Ali Obeid, who is hiding in orchards, was attacked yesterday but managed to escape,” said a merchant who, still unable to shake off the decades of repression, refused to give his name.
The International Committee of the Red Cross announced at the end of April that it had contacted US-led coalition forces to try to check numerous reports about mass graves in Iraq.
Thousands of Iraqi families are searching for loved ones who disappeared under Saddam’s regime, ousted when US forces entered Baghdad. The Baath regime brutally suppressed the uprising which broke out after the Gulf War.
