Posted on 05/16/2003 10:09:19 AM PDT by knighthawk
KARBALA: Volunteers with shovels excavated a mass grave in the Shiite holy city of Karbala today, collecting remains of the dead and calling the bodies evidence of crimes committed by Saddam Hussein.
The remains of 45 bodies were pulled from the ground in about three hours at the site, located near the holy shrine of Hussein, the grandson of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
Women slapped themselves in the face in grief and men beat their chests to pay tribute to their slain countrymen.
"The blood of innocent people won't go away. Criminals should stand trial," some of the 1,000 people gathered at the site chanted. "Death to the Baath Party members."
Local residents in Karbala's Mokhayem district said they suspect as many as 5,000 sets of remains are buried in the area, though they offered no immediate proof. The mass grave is the third uncovered in Iraq this week.
"This is a material evidence of crimes committed by the tyrant Saddam," said resident Bassem al-Tamimi.
The Shiites, who make up 60 per cent of Iraq's population, were persecuted and oppressed under Saddam's Sunni Muslim-dominated regime.
Many also hold deep anger against the US, a country they believe abandoned them in 1991 after encouraging them to m ount an armed revolt against Saddam after the Gulf War. Thousands of Shiites were slain by Saddam's forces after that rebellion.
The mass grave is the latest to surface as Iraqis, freed from Saddam's rule, begin to take stock of their missing and dead.
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