By Vanessa Allen, Chief Reporter, PA News, in southern Iraq
05 April 2003
Independent (UK)
Hundreds of human remains were today discovered in a "makeshift morgue" by British soldiers in southern Iraq.
The skulls, bundles of bone in strips of military uniform, were dumped in plastic bags and unsealed hardboard coffins in an abandoned Iraqi military base on the outskirts of Al Zubayr.
It was impossible to say how long the remains had lain there but the grim discovery will now be investigated by forensic specialists as possible evidence of atrocities perpetrated by the Iraqi regime.
The coffins were stacked five deep in a warehouse, and a neighbouring building contained apparent cells and catalogues of photographs of the dead, most of whom had died from gunshot wounds to the head.
Others were mutilated beyond recognition, their faces burned and swollen in the faded black and white photographs.
Outside stood what one soldier described as "a purpose-built shooting gallery".
A tiled foot-high plinth stood in a courtyard, with the brickwork behind it riddled with bullets. Behind that lay a drainage ditch.
Inside the warehouse, one of the bags and coffins contained an identity card written in Arabic, while military webbing and boot soles were visible in others.
Human skulls, their teeth broken and missing, looked out from other bags, bundled into the coffins.
Inside the cells in the other building were a picture of Saddam Hussein, what were believed to be prayer stones and, most ominously, what appeared to be metal hooks on racks hanging from the ceiling.
The discovery was made early today by officers from the 3rd Regiment of the Royal Horse Artillery, who moved their AS90 guns to the location last night.
Captain Jack Kemp, who was the first man into the building, said he believed there were more than 200 coffins, with as many more plastic bags filled with the remains.
He went into the building as part of a security check to make sure the area was safe for his troops.
"The first thing I was greeted by was approximately 200 makeshift coffins. They contain bags, each labelled, and there's human remains inside the bags.
"I wouldn't like to speculate, but the bones inside are obviously years old. It is certainly not from the recent conflict but it could be from the one before. We have placed it out of bounds to all personnel and we will treat it as a mass grave," he said.
I heard that, according to the ledger they have recovered, some go back as far as 1985.
"I wouldn't like to speculate, but the bones inside are obviously years old.
I just don't get it. What goes on in the minds of people who do something like this?
Why go to all the trouble of putting them in coffins and then not bury them? Wouldn't it have been a lot less time and work to just have cremated them? Take up a lot less room.
I guess they wanted people to see how they torture other humans.