The anatomy of a massacre and the overflowing morgues
Yesterday, there was a report of 50 Shia workers being kidnapped near Latifiyah about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
Today, 50 bodies were found executed in Baquba behind the offices of the electric company.
Two possibilities:
1) These are the same unfortunate individuals transported 50 miles as a Sunni act designed to inflame the city/province.
2) These deaths are a separate act of reprisal by a Shia militia for those 50 kidnapped and presumed dead.
Baquba/Diyala province is one of the most contested areas in Iraq right now, with parties on both sides trying to inflame the tensions. There's a real likelihood that Baquba may soon go the way of the much smaller Balad.
Probably the best observation I can offer is that we've reached a point where these massive events happen so frequently that there is no longer time to figure out what really happened in any of them. There is no more attempt to establish blame. It is just blood for blood.
Perhaps this story illustrates that better. At Baghdad's morgue, it is coming so quick and so fast, there is no longer even an effort to identify the bodies. They are photgraphed, numbered, thrown into piles, and then buried 50 at a time in government cemetaries.
The morgue in Kut is turning bodies away.
As you look at pictures (like the ones above and below,) notice how frequently you will see the bodies left outside. That's because the hospitals and morgues in Iraq are literally overflowing with the dead.
(At least 159 more bodies arrived in those morgues today.)
Today, 50 bodies were found executed in Baquba behind the offices of the electric company.
Two possibilities:
1) These are the same unfortunate individuals transported 50 miles as a Sunni act designed to inflame the city/province.
2) These deaths are a separate act of reprisal by a Shia militia for those 50 kidnapped and presumed dead.
Baquba/Diyala province is one of the most contested areas in Iraq right now, with parties on both sides trying to inflame the tensions. There's a real likelihood that Baquba may soon go the way of the much smaller Balad.
Probably the best observation I can offer is that we've reached a point where these massive events happen so frequently that there is no longer time to figure out what really happened in any of them. There is no more attempt to establish blame. It is just blood for blood.
Perhaps this story illustrates that better. At Baghdad's morgue, it is coming so quick and so fast, there is no longer even an effort to identify the bodies. They are photgraphed, numbered, thrown into piles, and then buried 50 at a time in government cemetaries.
"Every day, there are crowds of women outside weeping, yelling and flailing in grief. They're all looking for their dead sons and I don't know how the computer or we will bear up," Baghdad central morgue director Dr. Abdul-Razaq al-Obaidi.
The morgue in Kut is turning bodies away.
As you look at pictures (like the ones above and below,) notice how frequently you will see the bodies left outside. That's because the hospitals and morgues in Iraq are literally overflowing with the dead.
Abbas Beyat's joined the line outside Baghdad's central morgue after his brother Hussein disappeared a month ago....This is what we've given these people, average people who had nothing to do with the government of Saddam Hussein.
"The clerk told me to dig through them until I found my brother. I had to lift them off until I found him," he said.
(At least 159 more bodies arrived in those morgues today.)
posted by mikevotes at
2:14 PM
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