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05/20/2005:

"End of the Line for Families of Baghdad's Missing: The City Morgue"

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 19 - A small window in the city morgue is the last hope for people looking for their dead. Holding photographs of the missing, they peer through it to a computer screen where a worker flashes pictures of all the bodies no one has claimed. In Baghdad these days it can be a lengthy process.

Ahmed Ali displayed photos of unclaimed bodies on his computer screen at the Baghdad city morgue as Asya Khaadi looked for her missing son.
As the pace and intensity of the violence here increases, it is growing ever more difficult to match the missing with the dead. Car bombs explode, creating circles of chaos and mutilated bodies that often take days to sort out. Kidnappings punch holes in families for months.

Bodies, old and new, turn up daily. On Sunday alone, the authorities in Baghdad and three other cities found 46. Some of those found that day were buried in a Baghdad garbage dump. Others were discovered on a poultry farm south of here. Their tied hands and broken bodies are their most distinguishing features.

So people go to the window for answers.

"Every day people come to me," said Ahmed Ali, an Interior Ministry worker who displays the photographs. "I listen to their stories. People are in pain. They say: 'We know he's dead. We just want to bury him.' "

Bodies have surfaced almost without stop since the American invasion two years ago. First came the exhumation of mass graves from the time of Saddam Hussein. Those killings were often carried out in secret, and relatives were eager to finally find the bodies and some peace.

Since then the numbers of bodies have risen and fallen on the waves of violence that have rolled through the country. One crest was reached in January, before national elections, when 111 unidentified bodies were taken to the morgue, workers said. Only about half were claimed.

The violence is cresting again, with more than 400 Iraqis killed since late April.

"When they kill someone they just throw them away in deserted places," said Dr. Ibtihaj al-Aloosi, 60, a gynecologist who survived a five-day kidnapping in December. "The family has to go here and there to find them. This is very scary."

...The bodies often bear marks of torture, like tied hands and feet and mutilation...
Full: nytimes.com

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